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Assiniboin Warrior 
'After Maximilian.) 



AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY 



NORTH AMERICAN 
INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 




By CLARK WISSLER 

CURATOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY 



HANDBOOK SERIES No. 1 

(SECOND EDITION) 



NEW YORK 
1920 



ML 25 19ii 




Plan of the Plains Indian Hall. 

The Museum exhibits for the various tribes are arranged in approxi- 
mate geographical order, beginning with the Plains-Cree of the north 
and proceeding with the typical nomadic tribes (p. 14). In the north- 
western part of the hah are the Shoshoni, Ute, and Xez Perce, whose 
culture is intermediate between that of the Plains and Plateau area. 
In the northeastern section are the Mandan, Hidatsa, and other Village 
tribe?, also manifesting an intermediate culture between the Plains 
and that of the Woodlands to the east. 

The Woodland hall to the east and the Southwest hall to the north, 
are so arranged as to bring the intermediate tribes of each region near 
the entrance to the Plains Indian hall. Thus, from case to case, one 
may foUow changes in culture from the Atlantic Coast to the Colorado 
River and the Gulf of California. 



3 



PREFACE. 



THIS little book is not merely a guide to museum 
collections from the Plains Indians, but a sum- 
mary of the facts and interpretations making up 
the anthropology of those Indians. The specimens in 
this Museum were, for the most part, systematically col- 
lected by members of the scientific staff while sojourning 
among the several tribes. They were selected to 
illustrate various points in tribal life and customs, or 
culture. The exhibits in the Plains Hall contain, as 
far as space permits, most of the typical objects for 
each tribe; yet, it has been physically impossible to 
show everything the Museum possesses. So the most 
characteristic objects for each tribe have been selected 
and care taken to have the other objects common to 
many tribes appear at least once in some part of the 
hall. The ideal way would be to get every variety of 
every object used by each subdivision of a tribe and 
exhibit all of them in their entirety: but few collections 
can be made so complete, and even if they could, space 
in the building could not be found for them. The 
exhibits, then, should be taken as material indices, or 
marks, of tribal cultures and not as complete exposi- 
tions of them. This handbook, on the other hand, 
deals with the main points in the anthropology of the 
Plains Indians many of which (as marriage, social and 
political organization, language, etc.) cannot be de- 
monstrated by collections. The statements in the 
text are made upon the authority of the many special 



6 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



students of these Indians in whose writings will be 
found far more complete accounts. Citations to the 
more important works will be given in the bibliography 
The illustrations are chiefly from the anthropological 
publications of the Museum and for the most part 
represent specimens on exhibition in the Plains Hall 
For a mere general view of the subject, the legends to 
the maps, the introduction, and the concluding chapter 
are recommended. The intervening topics may then 
be taken up as guides to the study of collections or the 
perusal of the special literature. 



CONTEXTS. 

PAGE. 



Preface . . • . - • • * 
introduction . • 

CHAPTER I. 

Material Culture . . - ' ' U ' 

Food Buffalo Hunting. Hunting Implements.. Pemm can. 
Agriculture. Transportation. The Tipi. Earth-Lodges. 
Dress. Industrial Arts. Fire-making. Textiles aad *kms. 
Tailoring The Use of Rawhide. \The Parfleche. Rawhide 
Bags. Soft Bags. Household Utensils. 5 Tools. j Digging 
Stick. Pipes. Weapons. Games. 

CHAPTER II. 

Social Organization . • • • • ■ v _ " 
" The Camp Circle. Marriage. Government. Soldier Band, 
or Societies. Social Distinction. 

CHAPTER IIL 

Religion and Ceremonies . - • ■ • ■ * ' 
Mythology. Religious Concepts. A Supernatural Helpei. 
Medicine Bundles. Tribal Ceremonies. The Sun Dance. 
Ghost Dance Ceremonies. Peyote Worship. Dancing Asso- 
ciations. War and Scalp Dances. Ceremonial Procedure. 

CHAPTER IV. 
Decorative and Religious Art . . - • • * 

CHAPTER V. 
Language ... • • • • 

CHAPTER VI. 
Physical Type . . • • • • • * 

CHAPTER VII. 
The Chronology of Plains Culture . • • -■ 

The Pre-Columbian Period. The Horse Culture Period. 



o 

17 



21 



87 



103 



127 

134 
139 
1-46 



CHAPTER VIII. 

. 154 

Origins • • .159 

Bibliography ..-••*•** ^ 
Index . . . • • . • • 



MAPS AXD ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE. 

Assiniboin Warrior . . . . . - . " • Frontispiece 

Plan of the Plains Indian Hall . . . . . • - • 3 

Culture Areas in North America 11 

Map showing the Distribution of the Buffalo about 1800 . . 13 
The Indians of the Plains . . . • • ■ ■ Facing 14 
The Distribution of Forests in Western United States . . . 15 
Sinewed-backed Bow and Quiver from the Blackfoot and a Com- 
pound Bow of Mountain Sheep Horn from the Nez Perce . 26 

Lance with Obsidian Point. Nez Perce 27 

Meat Drying Rack. Blackfoot 28 

Stone-headed Pounders • • • 29 

Crossing the Missouri in a Bull-Boat • 32 

Blackfoot Travois 34 

Assiniboin Dog Travois . 3o 

Setting up a Crow Tipi 39 

Hidatsa Village in 1868 41 

One-piece Moccasin Pattern 43 

Two-piece Moccasin Pattern 44 

Man's Shirt. Blackfoot • 46 

Costumed Figure of a Dakota Woman ...... 48 

• 4-Q 

Woman's Dress of Elkskm ~y 

A Woman's Dress made from Two Deerskins ...... -51 

Distribution of the Plains Type of Woman's Dress . . . 52 

Firedrill. Northern Shoshoni 55 

Fleshing a Hide ..... • • • V - 57 

Using a Stone Scraper ^7 

Scraping a Hide. Blood 59 

Hide Scrapers 61 

Fleshing Tools .63 

Parfleche Pattern . . . . ■ • • .... 66 

AParfleche • • • • • • • 66 

Bag made of Rawhide . . . . . • 68 

A Case made of Rawhide 68 

Bag Decorated with Porcupine Quills and Beads. Dakota . . 69 

Pipe and Tobacco Bags. Dakota 70 

Strike-a-light Pouch. Arapaho 72 

Boiling with Hot Stones in a Paunch Supported by Sticks. Black- 
foot • • • ' I 5 

Buffalo Horn Spoon . 76 

9 



1U INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 

Bone Knife ^^80 

A Buffalo Hide Shield from the Northern Blackfoot . [ 83 

The Cheyenne Camp Circle g 0 

A Dog Dancer. Hidatsa 95 

Dance of the Bull Society. Mandan ... 97 

Headdress of Buffalo Skin, Arapaho Women's Society . " 98 

A Blackfoot War Record 10 q 

Medicine-pipe and Bundle ^ 

A Bundle and Contents. Arapaho ... 112 

Arapaho Sun Dance, Model in the Museum . 115 
Digging Stick and Case for Blackfoot Sun Dance Bundle .' . 117 

Sun Dance Headdress. Blackfoot .... H8 

Peyote Button 121 

Types of Designs on Moccasins 127 

Design Elements, Bead and Quill Embroidery 128 

Arapaho Moccasin with Symbolic Decoration . . 129 

Painted Designs on a Woman's Robe. Dakota ... 131 

Blanket Band in Quills. Blackfoot .... 133 

Teton-Dakota and Crow Types .... 140 

Cheyenne and Pawnee Types . . .. 141 

Blackfoot and Wind River Shoshoni Types ... 142 




Culture Areas in North America. 

The divisions marked on this map are not absolute but relative. 
Rarely can a tribe be found anywhere that does not share some of the 
cultural traits of all its immediate neighbors. Yet, certain groups of 
tribes often have highly characteristic traits in common; hence, they 
are said to be of the same general culture type. Thus the tribes dis- 
cussed in this book have a number of peculiar traits whose distribution 
in more or less complete association is taken as indicating the geographi- 
cal extent of a type of culture. The fact that these boundaries almost 

11 



12 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



coincide with the limits of the treeless prairies and plains and that 
this culture is most intensified among the tribes living in the Great 
Plains, has given rise to the term Plains area. In the same way other 
parts of the continent appear as the homes of peculiar culture types 
Anthropologists generally recognize at least eleven such areas whose 
approximate extents we have indicated in the accompanying map 
The types for each of these are illustrated as space permits in the four 
halls on the first floor of the Museum. As will be exemplified in the 
text, the lines separating these areas are somewhat arbitrary A more 
correct method would be to color the areas and divide them by broad 
bands m ever changing mixtures of the two colors, but only in a few 
instances have we sufficient data to do even this accurately. Hence 
the approximate line seems the best designation of culture boundaries' 
Reference to a linguistic map of North America will show that there 
is little correspondence between linguistic stocks and culture type for 
while in some cases the two lines on the map coincide, in others, they 
show no approach whatsoever Again, while the physical types of 
the Indians show some tendencies to agree in distribution with cultural 
traits, they also show marked disagreements. Hence, it is not far 
wrong to say that if, according to the data now available, we superim- 
posed cultural, linguistical, and physical type maps, we should find 
them with few boundaries in common. 

Returning to the consideration of culture areas and referring to the 
tribal map (p. 14), we see that the tribes of Plains Indians in a central 
position are the most typical, while their immediate neighbors show 
tendencies to live like more distant tribes. What we find, then, is a 
kind of culture center, where the purest types are found,' while sur- 
rounding this center are less pure cultures. Each of the designated 
culture areas in North America contains such a center where the true 
type of culture is to be found. 




Map Showing the Distribution of the Buffalo about 1800. 

The larger area defines the limits of the buffalo range in 1800 as 
determined by Dr. J. A. Allen. The smaller area indicates the range 
of the Plains Indians. While the bison area is somewhat larger than 
the culture area, the largest herds were found within the bounds of 
the latter. On the other hand, the cultures of tribes along the borders 
of the area are often intermediate in character. Hence, we find a 
rather close correlation between the distribution of the bison and 
culture traits, the nine typical tribes living where the herds were thick- 
est. 

13 




The Indians of the Plains. 

posiSL'anf S P ^nt t « he nf V ^ i0US tribe \ are approximately indicated bv the 
positions and extents of their respective names. As a rule these tribes 

Sain' cTnS/fw* ^T^f t0 th ? lr ran « es > iAS^S^ 
Pleased Th J f t>l otherwise hunting and roaming where it 

Bn C S^tW-rt " mlltatl °" ° f *e Woodland tribe" 
i * est * re V ew tribes whose position is uncertain- hence the 



14 



The Distribution of Forests in Western United States 



The shaded portions of this map mark the areas originally covered 
with trees. The true plains extend from north to south along the east- 
ern border of the Rocky Mountains. On the west, trees are found on 
the sides of mountains: on the east, they stretch out into the plains 
along the margins of the streams. Reference to the tribal map shows 
how the typical group ranges in the open plains while the eastern agri- 
cultural Village group lives in the partially forested belt. On the west 
the Plateau group appears to range in the open stretches among the 
mountains. 



IS 



INTRODUCTION. 



THE North American Indians may be classified in 
three ways: first, as to language; second, as to 
customs "and habits (culture); third, as to 
anatomical characters (physical type). It is, however, 
usual to consider them as composed of small more or less 
distinct political or social groups, or tribes, and it is 
under such group names that the objects in museum 
collections are arranged. The cultures of many tribes 
are quite similar and since such resemblances are nearly 
alwavs found among neighbors and not among widely 
scattered tribes, it is convenient and proper to group 
them in geographical or culture areas. Most anthro- 
pologists classify the cultures of North American tribes 
approximately as shown on the accompanying map. 

In the region of the great plains and prairies were 
many tribes of Plains Indians, who have held the first 
place in the literature and art of our time. Being 
rather war-like and strong in numbers, many of them 
are intimately associated with the history of our 
western states and every school boy knows how the 
Dakota (Sioux) rode down Custer's command. The 
names of Sitting-bull, Red-cloud, and Chief Joseph are 
also quite familiar. 

The culture of these Plains tribes is most strikingly 
associated with the buffalo, or bison, which not so very 
long ago roamed over their entire area. Turning to 
the map one may see how closely the distributions of 
this culture type and that for the buffalo coincide. 
This animal supplied them with one of their chief foods, 
in accessible and almost never-failing abundance. For 



18 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



a part of the year at least, all Plains tribes used the 
conical skin tent, or tipi. In early times the dog was 
used to transport baggage and supplies, but later, 
horses became very abundant and it is not far wrong to 
speak of all Plains tribes as horsemen. When on "the 
hunt or moving in a large body most of these tribes 
were controlled by a band of ••soldiers." or police, who 
drove in stragglers and repressed those too eager to 
advance and who also policed the camp and maintained 
order and system in the tribal hunt. All Indians are 
quite religious. Most of the Plains tribes had a grand 
annual gathering known in literature as the sun dance. 
In general, these few mam cultural characteristics may 
be taken to designate the type— the use of the buffalo, 
the tipi. the horse, the soldier-band, and the sun dance! 
Many of the tribes living near the Mississippi and along 
the Missouri, practised agriculture in a small way and 
during a part of the year lived in earth-covered or bark 
houses. Furthermore, there are many other tribal 
differences, so that it becomes admissible to subdivide 
the Plains Indians. The following seems the most 
consistent grouping. 



INTRODUCTION 



19 



1. The Northern Tribes 

*Assiniboin Plains-Gree 

*Blackf oot Plains-Oj ibway 

*Crow Sarsi 

*Gros Ventre ^Teton-Dakota 

2. The Southern Tribes 

*Arapaho *Comanche 
*Cheyenne *Kiowa 
Kiowa-Apache 

3. The Village, or Eastern Tribes 

Arikara Omaha 
Hiciatsa Osage 
Iowa Oto 
Kansa Pawnee 
Mandan Ponca 
Missouri Eastern Dakota 

Wichita 

4. The Plateau, or Western Tribes 

Bannock Northern Shoshoni 

Xez Perce Ute 

Wind River Shoshoni 

Cultural characteristics change gradually as we go 
from one tribe to another: hence, on the edges of the 
Plains area we may expect many doubtful cases. 
Among such may be enumerated the Flathead and 



20 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



Pend D'Oreille of the northwest, the Illinois and 
Winnebago of the east, and some Apache of the south. 
On the southeast, in Texas and Arkansas, were the 
Caddoan tribes (Kichai, Waco, Tawakoni, etc., rela- 
tives of the Wichita) having a culture believed' to be 
intermediate between the Plains and that of the 
Southeastern area. Yet, in spite of these and other 
doubtful cases, it is usual to exclude all not enumerated 
in the above lists as belonging more distinctly with 
other culture areas. As this grouping is rather for 
convenience than otherwise, and the culture of each 
tribe is determined by its own data, the exact placing 
of these border tribes is of no great moment. However, 
the most typical Plains tribes are the Assiniboin| 
Blackfoot, Gros Ventre, Crow, Teton-Dakota, Arapaho' 
Cheyenne, Comanche, and Kiowa, indicated in the 
preceding list by an asterisk (*). Reference to the 
map shows how peculiarly this typical group stretches 
from north to south, almost in a straight line, with the 
intermediate Plateau group on one side and the Village 
group on the other. Again, the forestry map shows 
that the range of this typical nomadic group coincides 
with the area in which trees are least in evidence. It 
embraces the true tipi-dwelling, horse, and non-agri- 
cultural tribes. It is primarily the cultural traits of 
this nomadic group that are discussed in this book, . 
though the important exceptions among the two 
marginal groups are noted. 



Chapter I. 



MATERIAL CULTURE, 

SINCE this is a discussion of the general character- 
istics of Plains Indians, we shall not take them up 
by tribes, as is usual but by topics. Anthropolo- 
gists are accustomed to group the facts of primitive life 
under the following main heads: material culture (food, 
transportation, shelter, dress, manufactures, weapons, 
etc.), social organization, religion and ceremonies, art, 
language, and physical type. 

Food. The flesh of the buffalo was the great staple 
of the Plains Indians, though elk, antelope, bear and 
smaller game were not infrequently used. On the other 
hand, vegetable foods were always a considerable por- 
tion of their diet, many of the eastern groups cultivating 
corn ( maize) and gathering wild rice, the others making 
extensive use of wild roots, seeds, and fruits. All the 
tribes living on the edges of the buffalo area, even those 
on the western border of the Woodlands, seem to have 
made regular hunting excursions out into the open 
country. Thus Nicolas Perrot writing in 1680-1718 
(p. 119) says of the Indians in Illinois: — 

The savages set out in the autumn, after they have gathered the 
harvest, to go hunting; and they do not return to their villages until 
the month of March, in order to plant the grain on their lands. As 
soon as this is done, they go hunting again, and do not return until 
the month of July. 



IXDIAXS OF THE PLAIXS 



Early explorers in the plateaus to the west of the 
plains tell us that the Xez Perce and Flathead of Idaho 
and even the inhabitants of the Rio Grande pueblo of 
Taos. New Mexico., made periodical hunting excursions 
to the plains. 

To most of the Plains tribes, the introduction of the 
European horse was a great boon. Unfortunately, 
we have no definite information as to when and how 
the horse was spread over the plains but it was so early 
That its presence is noted by some of the earliest ex- 
plorers. It is generally assumed that by trade and by 
the capture of horses escaping from the settlements, 
the various tribes quickly acquired their stock, first 
from Mexico and the southern United States, whence 
the Apache. Comanche, Kiowa, and Pawnee obtained 
them, and in turn passed them on to the north. 
The Shoshoni and other tribes of the Plateau area were 
also pioneers in their use. Even as early as 1754 horses 
are reported in great numbers among the Blackfoot, 
one of the extreme Northern Plains groups. Hence, 
we have no detailed information as to the mode of life 
among these tribes before the horse was introduced, 
except what is gleaned from their tribal traditions. 
That the use of the horse made a great change in cul- 
ture is quite probable. It must have stimulated 
roving and the pursuit of the buffalo and discouraged 
tendencies toward fixed abodes and agriculture. 

Buffalo Hunting. Ml Plains tribes seem to have 
practised cooperative hunting in an organized rnilitarv- 
like manner. This usually took the form of a surround 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



23 



in which a large body of Indians on swift horses and 
under the direction of skilled leaders rode round and 
round a herd bunching them up and shooting down the 
animals one by one. Stirring accounts of such hunts 
have been left us by such eye-witnesses as Catlin, 
James, and Grinnell. All tribes seem to have used this 
method in summer and it was almost the only one 
followed by the Southern Plains tribes. 

In winter, however, when the northern half of the 
plains was often covered with snow, this method was 
not practised. Alexander Henry, Maximilian, and 
others, have described a favorite winter method of 
impounding, or driving the herd into an enclosure. 
Early accounts indicate that the Plains-Cree and 
Assiniboin were the most adept in driving into these en- 
closures and may perhaps have introduced the method 
among the Plains tribes. The Plains-Cree are but a 
small outlying part of a very widely distributed group 
of Cree, the culture of whose main body seems quite 
uniform. Xow, even the Cree east of Hudson Bay, 
Canada, use a similar method for deer, and since there 
is every reason to believe that the Plains-Cree are but 
a colony of the larger body to the east, it seems fair to 
assume that the method of impounding buffalo origi- 
nated with them. However that may be, some form 
of it was practised by the Blackfoot, Gros Ventre, 
Hidatsa, Mandan, Teton-Dakota, Arapaho, Cheyenne, 
and perhaps others. 

We have some early accounts of another method 
used in the prairies of Illinois and Iowa. Thus, in 
Perrot (121) we read: — 



24 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



When the vdlage has a large number of young men able to bear 
arms they divide these into three bodies; one takes its route o th 
nght, another that to the left, and half of the third party is divided 
between the two former ones. One of these latter parties goe< away 
[from its mam column] a league or thereabout to the right and the 
other remains on the left, both parties forming, each on S own side 
a long file: then they set out. in single file, and continue their march 
until they judge that then- line of men is sufficiently long for them to 
advance into the depths [of the forest]. As they begin then march at 
midnight, one of the parties waits until dawn. whileSe o£ 
their way; and after they have marched a league or more ano he 
party waits again for daylight: the rest march [until] after another 
ham ague has been covered, and likewise wait. When the day hi 
at last begun this third party which had separated to the right and the 
eft with the two others pushes its way farther: and as soon L the 

and thTle^b * ^ *7 00 ^ ^ ^ °° * righ 

and the left, being m sight of each other, come together in [one] file 
and dose up the end of the circuit which they intend to surround 

They commence at once by setting fire to the dried herbage which is 
abundant in those prairies: those who occupy the flanks do the saw 
and at that moment the entire village breaks camp, with all the old men 
and young boys-who divide themselves equally on both sides move 
away to a distance, and keep the hunting parties in sight so that they 
can act with the latter, so that the fires can be lighted on all four sides 
at once and gradually communicate the flames from one to another" 
That produces the same effect to the sight as four ranks of palisades' 
in which the buffaloes are enclosed. When the savage see that the 
animals are trying to get outside of it. in order to escape the fires which 
surround them on all sides and this is the one thing in the world w 
they most tear;, they run at them and compel them to reenter the 
enclosure: and they avail themselves of this method to kill all the beasts 
It £ asserted that there are some villages winch have secured as many 
as fitteen hundred buffaloes, and others more or fewer, according to the 
number of men m each and the size of the enclosure which they make 
m their hunting. • 

The natural inference seems to be that the grass 
firing and impounding methods of taking buffalo were 
developed before the introduction of the horse and are 
therefore the most primitive. The individual hunting 
of buffalo as well as in small parties was. of course 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



25 



practised. In modern times swift horses were used to 
bring the rider in range when he shot down the fleeing 
beasts. But before horses were known the cooperative 
method must have prevailed. 

Hunting Implements. The implements used for 
killing buffalo were not readily displaced by guns. 
Bows and arrows were used long after guns were com- 
mon. In fact, pioneers maintain that at close range 
the rapidity and precision of the bow was only to be 
excelled by the repeating rifle, a weapon developed in 
the TO's. Even so, the bow was not entirely discarded 
until the buffalo became extinct. The bows were of 
two general types: the plain wooden bow, and the 
sinew-backed, or compound bow. It is generally held 
that the tribes east of the Mississippi River used the 
simple wooden bow while those on the Pacific Coast 
used the sinew-backed type. It is quite natural, there- 
fore, that among the Plains tribes, we should find both 
types in general use and that the sinew-backed was 
more common among the Shoshoni and other Plateau 
tribes. 

Some curious bows were made from mountain sheep 
horn backed with sinew, a fine example of which is to 
be seen in the Xez Perce collection (Fig. 1). The 
Crow, Hidatsa, and Mandan sometimes used a bow 
of elkhorn, probably one of the finest examples of 
Indian workmanship: u They take a large horn or 
prong, and saw a slice off each side of it ; these slices 
are then filed or rubbed down until the flat sides fit 
nicely together, when they are glued and wrapped at 



26 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



the ends. Four slices make a bow, it being jointed. 
Another piece of horn is laid on the center of the bow 
at the grasp, where it is glued fast. The whole is then 
filed down until it is perfectly proportioned, when the 




Fig. 1. Sinew-backed Bow and Quiver from the Blackfoot and a 
Compound Bow of Mountain Sheep Horn from the Xez Perce. 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



27 



white bone is ornamented, carved, and painted. Noth- 
ing can exceed the beauty of these bows, and it takes 
an Indian about three months to make one." (Belden, 
112.) All these compound bows are sinew-backed, 
it being the sinew that gives them efficiency. Some 
fine old wooden bows may be seen in the Museum's 
Dakota collection. 



A lance was frequently used for buffalo : in the hands 
of a powerful horseman, this is said to have been quite 
effective. There is a stone-pointed lance in the Nez 
Perce collection which may be of the type formerly 
used, Fig. 2. Wounded animals and those in the 
enclosure of the pound were often brought down by 
knocking on the head with stone-headed clubs and 
mauls. 

Pemmican. As buffalo could not be killed every 
day, some method of preserving their flesh in an eatable 
condition was necessary to the well-being of the Plains 
Indian. The usual method was by drying in the sun. 
Steaks were cut broad and thin, and slashed by short 
cuts which gaped open when the pieces were suspended, 





Fig. 2. Lance with Obsidian Point, Nez Perce. 



28 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



giving the appearance of holes. These steaks were 
often placed in boiling water for a few moments and 
then hung upon poles or racks out of reach of doo- 
In the course of a few days, if kept free from moisture, 
the meat became hard and dry. It could then be 
stored in bags for future use. Fat. also, could be 
dried if slightly boiled. 




Fig. 3. Meat Drying Rack. Blackfoot. 

Dried meat of the buffalo and sometimes of the elk 
was often pounded fine, making what was known as 
pemmican. While some form of pemmican was used 
in many parts of North America, the most characteristic 
kind among the Plains Indians was the berry pemmican. 
To make this, the best cuts of the buffalo were dried 
in the usual manner. During the berry season wild 
cherries Prunus demissa) were gathered and crushed 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



29 



with stones, pulverizing the pits, and reducing the 
whole to a thick paste which was partially dried in the 
sun. Then the dried meat was softened by holding 
over a fire, after which it was pounded fine with a stone 
or stone-headed maul. In the Dakota collection may 
be seen some interesting rawhide mortars for this 
purpose. This pulverized meat was mixed with melted 
fat and marrow, to which was added the dried but 
sticky cherry paste. The whole mass was then packed 
in a long, flat rawhide bag, called a parfleche. With 




Fig. 4. Stone-headed Pounders. 



proper care, such pemmican would keep for years. 
In pioneer days, it was greatly prized by white trappers 
and soldiers. 

Agriculture. Almost without exception, the Village 
group of tribes made at least some attempts to cultivate 
maize. Of the northern tribes, none have been credited 
with this practice, except perhaps the Teton-Dakota. 



30 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



Yet, the earlier observers usually distinguish the Teton 
from the Eastern Dakota by their non-agricultural 
habits. Of the southern tribes, we cannot be so sure. 
The Cheyenne, who seem to have abandoned a forest 
home for the plains just before the historic period have 
traditions of maize culture, but seem to have discon- 
tinued it soon after going into the buffalo country. 
The Arapaho are thought by some anthropologists to 
have preceded the Cheyenne. Yet while many writers 
are disposed to admit that all of the southern group 
may have made some attempts at maize growing, they 
insist that these were feeble in comparison with the 
Milage tribes. When, however, we turn to the Plateau 
area, there are no traces of maize growing. In asso- 
ciation with maize it was usual to raise some varieties 
of squash and beans. 

Thus, in a general way, the practice of agriculture 
seems to dwindle out gradually as we leave the more 
fertile river bottoms of the east and south, suggesting 
that its positive absence among the extreme western 
and northern tribes is due to unfavorable soil and 
climate rather than to any mental or social differences in 
the tribes concerned. This is consistent with the wide 
distribution of tobacco raising. The Blackfoot, Crow, 
Hidatsa, Mandan, Arikara, Pawnee, and Eastern Dakota 
are known to have cultivated it for ceremonial purposes. 

The plants have not been closely studied, but that 
of the Hidatsa and Mandan is Nicotiana quadrivalvis. 
It is probable that this is the species among the other 
tribes, with the exception of the Crow and Blackfoot. 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



31 



The latter has been pronounced Nicotiana attenuata and 
Crow tobacco is multivalvis. The last is said to be a 
native of Oregon and to have been cultivated by tribes 
in the Columbia River valley. The fact that the Black- 
foot and Crow did not attempt any other agriculture 
except the raising of this tobacco rather strengthens 
the previous opinion that maize was not produced be- 
cause of the unfavorable conditions. Among the tribes 
of the Plateau area, on the western border of the Plains, 
wild seeds and grains were gathered and so took the 
place of maize in the east. So we find the Shoshoni and 
Ute making some use of such foods. On the other 
hand, the northern and southern Plains groups de- 
pended mostly upon dried berries and edible roots, 
which, however, were a relatively small part of their 
diet, buffalo flesh being the important food. This was 
particularly true of the nine typical tribes. With these 
tribes, the buffalo was not only food: but his by- 
products, such as skin, bones, hair, horns, and sinew, 
were the chief materials for costume, tents, and utensils 
of all kinds. 

Transportation. Before the introduction of the 
horse, the Plains Indians traveled on foot. The tribes 
living along the Mississippi made some use of canoes, 
according to early accounts, while those of the Missouri 
and inland, used only crude tub-like affairs for ferry 
purpose. When first discovered, the Mandan, Hidat- 
sa, and Arikara had villages on the Missouri, in what is 
now North Dakota, but they have never been credited 
with canoes. For crossing the river, they used the bull- 



32 INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 

boat, a tub-shaped affair made by stretching buffalo 
skins over a wooden frame; but journeys up and down 
the bank were made on foot. Many of the Eastern 





Fig. 5. Crossing the Missouri in a Bull-Boat. 
(Wilson photo.) 

Dakota used small canoes in gathering wild rice in the 
small lakes of Minnesota, though the Teton-Dakota 
have not been credited with the practice. It seems 
probable that the ease of travel in the open plains and 
the fact that the buffalo were often to be found inland, 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



33 



made the use of canoes impractical, whereas along the 
great lakes the broad expanse of water offered every 
advantage to their use. Since almost every Plains 
tribe used some form of the bull-boat for ferrying, and 
many of them came in contact with canoe-using 
Indians, the failure of those living along the Missouri 
to develop the canoe can scarcely be attributed to 
ignorance. 

When on the march, baggage was carried on the 
human back and also by dogs, the only aboriginal 
domestic animals. Most tribes used a peculiar A- 
shaped contrivance, known as a dog travois, upon which 
packs were placed. All the northern tribes are credited 
with the dog travois. Many of the Village tribes also 
used it, as did also some of the southern group. With 
the introduction of the horse, a larger but similar 
travois was used. This, however, did not entirely dis- 
place the dog travois as Catlin's sketches show Indians 
on the march with both horses and dogs harnessed to 
travois. The travois of the northern tribes were of two 
types : rectangular cross-frames and oval netted frames, 
Fig. 6. The Blackfoot, Sarsi and Gros Ventre inclined 
toward the former; the Assiniboin, Dakota, Hidatsa, 
and Mandan toward the latter, though both types were 
often used simultaneously. On the other hand, the 
southern tribes seem to have inclined toward an im- 
provised travois formed by binding tipi poles to the 
sides of the saddle and slinging the pack across behind. 

The use of a sled on the ice or snow has not been 
credited to any except some of the Eastern Dakota 



INDIANS OF THE PLAIN 




Fig 6. Blaekfoot Travois 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



35 



and the Mandan and among them it is quite probable 
that it was introduced by white traders. 

The riding gear and horse trappings that always 
form an interesting part of collections; naturally came 



in with the horse and followed European models. The 
native bridle was a simple rope or thong looped around 
the jaw. Saddles were of two types; pads and frames. 
The latter were made of wood or elkhorn securely 
bound with fresh buffalo hide which shrunk as it dried. 
The Mills Catlin collection contains a sketch showing 
how one of the saddles is staked down to the ground 
while the wet rawhide sets in place. Women's saddles 
had very high pommels and were often gaily ornamented. 
Stirrups were also made of wood bound with rawhide. 






Fig. 7. Assiniboin Dog Travois. 



3<5 



DTOIAHS 0 F THE PLAINS 



Some tribes, the Dakota for example, used highly 
decorated saddle blankets, or skins: while others 

Crow. Blackfoor. etc. used elaborate cruppers. Quirts 
with short handles of elkhorn or wood were common. 
In fact, there was little difference in the form of riding 
gear among all the Plains tribes. 

The nine typical tribes were more or less always on 
the move. All their possessions were especially de- 
signed for ready transport. Nearly all receptacles 
and most utensils were made of rawhide, while the tipi. 
or tent, was easily rolled up and placed upon a travois. 
T\ hen the chief gave out the order to break camp it 
took but a few minutes for the women to have every- 
thing loaded on travels and ready for the march. Even 
the Village group used tipis and horses when on the 
buffalo hunt p. 19 . The smaller baggage was often 
loaded upon dog travois. We have no accurate data 
as to how the camp was moved before horses came into 
the country, but the process was certainly more 
laborious and the marches shorter. 

The Tipi. One of the most characteristic features 
of Plains Indian culture was the tipi. All the tribes 
of the area, almost without exception, used it for a 
part of the year at least. Primarily, the tipi was a 
conical tent covered with dressed buffalo skins. A 
carefully mounted and equipped tipi from the Black- 
foot Indians stands in the center of the Plains exhibit. 
Everywhere the tipi was made, cared for, and set up 
by the women. First, a conical framework of long- 
slender poles was erected and the cover raised into 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



37 



place. Then the edges of the cover were staked down 
and the poles supporting the "ears" put in place. 
The "ears" are wings, or flies, to keep the wind out of 
the smoke hole at the top: they were moved about by 
the outside poles. The fire was built near the center 
and the beds spread upon the ground around the sides. 
The head of the family usually sat near the rear, or 
facing the door. 

While in essential features the tipis of all Plains 
tribes were the same, there were nevertheless some 
important differences. Thus, when setting up a tipi. 
the Blackfoot, Crow. Sarsi, Hidatsa, Omaha, and 
Comanche first -tie four poles as a support to the others: 
while the Teton-Dakota. Assiniboin. Cheyenne. Gros 
Ventre. Arapaho. Kiowa. Plains-Cree. Mandan, and 
Pawnee use three, or a tripod foundation. For the 
remaining tribes, we lack data, but it seems safe to 
assume that they follow one or the other of these 
methods. The three-pole foundation gives the pro- 
jecting tops of the poles a spiral appearance while the 
four-pole beginning tends to group them on the sides. 
Thus, to a practised eye. the difference is plain. The 
covers, ears, doors, etc.. are quite similar throughout. 
The shapes of tipis. however, show some differences. 
Thus, the Cheyenne prefer a wide base in proportion 
to the height while the Arapaho prefer a narrow base. 
Again, the Crow use very long poles, the ends pro- 
jecting out above like a great funnel. 

It is important to note that the use of the tipi is not 
confined to the plains. The 0 jib way along the Lakes 
used it. but covered it with birchbark as did also many 



38 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



of the Cree and tribes formerly established in eastern 
Canada and New England. Even the Eastern Dakota 
in early days used birchbark for tipi covers. A tipi-like 
skin-covered tent was in general use among the Indians 
of Labrador and westward throughout the entire 
Mackenzie area of Canada. To the west, the Plains 
tipi was found among the Nez Perce, Flathead, Cayuse, 
and Umatilla; to the southwest, among the Apache.' 
It is well-nigh impossible to determine what tribes first 
originated this type of shelter, though a comparison 
of the details of structure might give some definite 
clues. Yet, one thing is clear; viz., that it was espe- 
cially adapted to the roving life of the Plains tribes 
when pursuing the buffalo. 

Earth=Lodges. Before going further, we must needs 
recall that the tipi was not the only type of shelter used 
by these Indians. The Mandan, Hidatsa, and Ankara 
lived in more or less permanent villages of curious 
earth-covered lodges. The following description of a 
Hidatsa house may serve as a type: — 

On the site of a proposed lodge, they often dig down a foot or more 
m order to find earth compact enough to form a good floor; so, in some 
lodges, the floors are lower than the general surface of the ground on 
which the village stands. The floor is of earth, and has in its center a 
circular depression, for a fire-place, about a foot deep, and three or four 
feet wide, with an edging of flat rocks. These dwellings, being from 
thirty to forty feet in diameter, from ten to fifteen feet high in the 
center, and from five to seven feet high at the eaves, are quite com- 
modious. 

The frame of a lodge is thus made:— A number of stout posts, from 
ten to fifteen, according to the size of the lodge, and rising to the height 
of about five feet above the surface of the earth, are set about ten feet 
apart in a circle. On the tops of these posts, solid beams are laid, ex- 
tending from one to another. Then, toward the center of the lodge, 




39 



40 



INDIANS OF THE 



four more posts are erected, of much greater diameter than the outer 
posts, and rising to the height of ten or more feet above the .round 
lhese four posts stand in the corners of a square of about fifteen feet' 
and their tops are connected with four heaw logs or beams laid hori' 
zontally. From the four central beams to the smaller external beams 
ong poles, as rafters, are stretched at an angle of about 30= with the 
horizon; and from the outer beams to the earth a number of shorter 
poles are laid at an angle of about 45*. Finallv a number of sapling 
or rails are laid horizontally to cover the space between the four central 
beams, leaving only a hole for the combined skvlight andchimnev 
Ihis frame is then covered with willows, hav, and earth, as before men' 
tioned: the covering being of equal depth over all parts of the frame 
'Matthews, 4-5 j. 

Houses of approximately the same type were used 
by the Pawnee. Omaha. Ponea. Kansa. Missouri, and 
Oto ; The Osage, on the other hand, are credited with 
the use of dome-shaped houses covered with mats and 
bark, like the Ojibway and other Woodland tribes. 
The Hidatsa type 0 f lodge is. unlike the tipi. definitely 
localized along the Missouri and the Platte, giving one 
the impression that it must have originated within this 
territory. The Omaha claim to have originally used 
tipis and to have learned the use of earth-lodges from 
the Ankara: likewise the Skicii-Pawnee claim the tipi 
as formerly then own dwelling. However, all these 
tribes used tipis when on summer and winter trips after 
buffalo (p* 21). 

Some of the Eastern Dakota lived for a part of the 
year in rectangular cabins of bark and poles as did some 
of the Woodland tribes. On the west, an oval or 
conical brush or grass shelter seems to have preceded 
the tipi. The Comanche were seen using both this 
western type of brush lodge and the tipi in 1853. The 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



41 



Northern Shoshoni have also been observed with 
brush lodges and tipis in the same camp. These 
instances are probably examples of a transition in 
culture. Thus, we see how even among the less civilized 
peoples all are prone to be influenced by the culture of 




Fig. 9. Hidatsa Village in 1868. 
(The low earth-covered lodges are obscured by the poles of drying- 
frames. Morrow photo reproduced by F. X. Wilson.) 



their neighbors and that in consequence, cultures grade 
into one another according to geographical relations. 

Another curious thing is that all the tribes raising 
maize used earth or bark houses, but as a rule lived in 
them only while planting, tending, and harvesting the 



42 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



crop. At other times, they took to tipis. Even in 
mid-winter the Omaha and Eastern Dakota lived in 
tipis. 

A unique and exceptional type of shelter was used 
by the Wichita and the related Caddoan tribes of the 
Southeastern culture area. This is known as a grass 
lodge. It consists of a dome-shaped structure of poles 
thatched with grass and given an ornamental 
appearance by the regular spacing of extra bunches of 
thatch. Formerly, each of these houses had four doors, 
east, west, north, and south, and four poles projected 
from the roof in the respective directions. 

Dress. The men of the Plains were not elaborately 
clothed. At home, they usually went about in breech- 
cloth and moccasins. The former was a broad strip of 
cloth drawn up between the legs and passed under the 
belt both behind and before. There is some reason for 
believing that even this was introduced by white 
traders, the more primitive form being a small apron 
of dressed skin. At all seasons a man kept at hand a 
soft tanned buffalo robe in which he tastefully swathed 
his person when appearing in public, This was uni- 
versally true of all, with the possible exception of some 
southern tribes. In the Plateau area, the most common 
for winter were robes of antelope, elk, and mountain 
sheep, while in summer elkskins without the hair were 
worn. Beaver skins and those of other small animals 
were sometimes pieced together. According to Grinnell, 
the Blackfoot, east of the Rocky Mountains, also used 
these various forms of robes. Again, the Plateau tribes 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



43 



sometimes used a curious woven blanket of strips of 
rabbitskin also widely used in Canada and the South- 
west. So far this type of blanket has not been reported 
for the Plains tribes east of the mountains. 




Fig. 10. One-piece Moccasin Pattern. That part of the pattern 
marked a forms the upper side of the moccasin; b, the sole; e, the 
tongue; /, the trailer. The leather is folded lengthwise, along the 
dotted line, the points c and d are brought together and the edges sewed 
along to the point g, which makes a seam the whole length of the foot 
and around the tots. The vertical heel seam is formed by sewing 
c and d now joined to h, f projecting. The strips c and d are each, half 
the width of that marked h, consequently the side seam at the heel is 
half way between the top of the moccasin and the sole, but reaches the 
level at the toes. As the sides of this moccasin are not high enough for 
the wearer's comfort, an extension or ankle flap is sewed on, varying 
from two to six inches in width, cut long enough to overlap in front and 
held in place by means of the usual drawstring or lacing around the 
ankle. 

Everywhere, we find no differences between the 
robes of men and women except in their decorations. 
The buffalo robes were usually the entire skins with the 



44 



IM)IAXS OF THE PLAIXS 



tail. Among most tribes, this robe was worn horizon- 
tally with the tail on the right hand side. Light, dur- 
able, and gaily colored blankets were later introduced 
by traders and are even now hi general use. 

Moccasins were worn by all. the sandals of the 
Southwest and Mexico not being credited to these 
Indians. The two general structural types of mocca- 




sins in North America are the one-piece, or soft-soled 
moccasin, and the two-piece, or hard-soled. The 
latter prevails among these Indians, while the former 
is general among forest Indians. A Blackfoot moccasin 
of a simple two-piece pattern is shown in Fig. 11. 
The upper is made of soft tanned skin and after finish- 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



45 



ing and decorating is sewed to a rawhide sole cut 
to fit the foot of the wearer. A top, or vamp, 
may be added. 

The pattern for a Blackfoot one-piece moccasin is 
shown in Fig. 10. Our collections show that this 
type occurs occasionally among the Sarsi, Blackfoot, 
Plains-Cree, Assiniboin, Gros Ventre, Northern Sho- 
shoni, Omaha, Pawnee, and Eastern Dakota. So far. 
it has not been reported for any of the southern tribes. 
Among many of the foregoing, this form seems to have 
been preferred for winter wear, using buffalo skin with 
the hair inside. Again, since all the tribes to the north 
and east of these Indians used the one-piece moccasin 
all the year round, its presence in this part of the Plains 
is quite natural. 

To the south, we find a combined stiff-soled moccasin 
and legging to be seen among the Arapaho, Ute, and 
Comanche. This again seems to be related to a boot 
type of moccasin found in parts of the Southwest. 

So, in general, the hard-soled moccasin is the type 
for these Indians. Old frontiersmen claim that from 
the tracks of a war party, the tribe could be determined : 
this is in a measure true, for each had some distinguish- 
ing secondary feature, such as heel fringes, toe forms, 
etc., that left their marks in the dust of the trail. 
Ornaments and decoration will, however, be discussed 
under another head. 

Almost everywhere the men wore long leggings tied 
to the belt. Women's leggings were short, extending 
from the ankle to the knee and supported by garters. 



4n 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



Some of the most conspicuous objects in the collec- 
tions are the so-called war. or scalp shuts, Fig. 12. 
One of the oldest was obtained by Col, Sword in 1S3S 




Fig. 12. Man s Shirt. Blackfoot. 



and seems to be Dakota (Sioux . It is of deerskin. 
Some fine examples are credited to the Teton-Dakota. 
Crow, and Blackfoot, though almost every tribe had 
them in late years. This type, however, should not be 
taken as a regular costume. Though in quite recent 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



47 



years it has become a kind of tuxedo, it was formerly the 
more or less exclusive uniform of important function- 
aries. On the other hand, the shut itself, stripped of its 
ornaments and accessories seems to be of the precise 
pattern once worn in daily routine. Yet, the indica- 
tions are that as a regular costume, the shirt was by no 
means in general use. The Cree, Dene, and other 
tribes of central Canada wore leather shirts, no doubt 
because of the severe winters. We also have positive 
knowledge of their early use by the Blackfoot, Assini- 
boin. Crow, Dakota. Plains-Cree, Xez Perce, Northern 
Shoshoni, Gros Ventre, and on the other hand of their 
absence among the Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Pawnee, 
Osage. Kiowa, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Comanche. 
Thus, the common shirt was after all not typical of the 
Plains Indians: it is only recently that the special 
decorated form so characteristic of the Assiniboin, 
Crow, Blackfoot, and Dakota has come into general 
use. Several interesting points may be noted in the 
detailed structure of these shirts, but we must pass on. 

For the head there was no special covering. Yet in 
winter the Blackfoot, Plains-Cree, and perhaps others 
in the north, often wore fur caps. In the south and west 
the head was bare, but the eyes were sometimes pro- 
tected by simple shades of rawhide. So. in general, 
both sexes in the Plains went bare-headed, though the 
robe was often pulled up forming a kind of temporary 
hood. 

Mittens and gloves seem to have been introduced by 
the whites, though they appear to have been native in 
other parts of the continent. 



4^ 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 




Fig. 13. Costumed Figure of a Dakota Woman. 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



49 



The women of all tribes wore more clothing than the 
men. The most typical garment was the sleeveless 
dress, a one-piece garment, an excellent example of 




Fig. 14. Woman's Dress of Elkskin. Audubon. 



which is to be seen in the Audubon collection, Fig. 14. 
This type was used by the Hidatsa, Mandan, Crow, 
Dakota, Arapaho, Ute, Kiowa, Comanche, Sarsi, 
Gros Ventre, Assiniboin, and perhaps others. A slight 



50 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



variant is reported for the Nez Perce, Northern Sho- 
shoni, and Plains-Cree in that the extensions of the 
cape are formed into a tight-fitting sleeve. Some 
writers claim that in early days the Assiniboin and 
Blackfoot women also used this form. Formerly, the 
Cheyenne, Osage, and Pawnee women wore a two- 
piece garment consisting of a skirt and a cape, a form 
typical of the Woodland Indians of the east, 

A close study of Plains costumes will disclose that in 
spite of one general pattern, there are tribal styles. In 
the first place, all dresses show the same main outline, 
curious open hanging sleeves, and a bottom of four 
appendages of which those at the sides are longest (Fig. 
14). Almost without exception these dresses are made 
of two elkskins, the natural contour of which is shown in 
Fig. 15. The sewing of these together gives the pattern 
of the garment , which is modified by trimming or piecing 
the edges as the tribal style may require. This is a 
particularly good example of how the form of a costume 
may be determined by the material. The distribution of 
tribal variations in these dress patterns is shown in 
Fig. 16. 

The shirts for men are also made of two deerskins on 
a slightly different pattern, but one in which the natural 
contour of the skin is the determining factor. 

The manner of dressing the hair is often a conspicu- 
ous conventional feature. Many of the Plains tribes 
wore it uncropped. Among the northern tribes the men 
frequently gathered the hair in two braids but in the 
extreme west and among some of the southern tribes, 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



51 




Fig. 15. A Woman's Dress made from Two Deerskins (A, A' 
folded and pieced (B, C, B', C). The skins are folded on the dott?d 
line and sewed together, leaving a hole for the head. 




Fig. 16. Distribution of the Plains Type of Woman's Dress. 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



53 



both sexes usually wore it loose on the shoulders and 
back. The Crow men sometimes cropped the forelock 
and trained it to stand erect; the Blackfoot, Assini- 
boin, Yankton-Dakota, Hidatsa, Mandan, Arikara, 
and Kiowa trained a forelock to hang down over the 
nose. Early writers report a general practice of arti- 
ficially lengthening men's hair by gumming on extra 
strands until it sometimes dragged on the ground. 

The hair of women throughout the Plains was usually 
worn in the two-braid fashion with the median part 
from the forehead to the neck. Old women frequently 
allowed the hair to hang down at the sides or confined 
it by a simple headband. 

Again, we find exceptions in that the Oto, Osage, 
Pawnee, and Omaha closely cropped the sides of the 
head, leaving a ridge or tuft across the crown and down 
behind. It is almost certain that the Ponea once 
followed the same style and there is a tradition among 
the Oglala division of the Teton-Dakota that they also 
shaved the sides of the head. (See also History of the 
Expedition of Lewis and Clark, Reprinted, New York, 
1902, Vol. 1. p. 135.) We may say then that the love 
of long heavy tresses was a typical trait of the Plains. 

By the public every Indian is expected to have his 
hair thickly decked with feathers. The striking 
feather bonnets with long tails usually seen in pictures 
were exceptional and formerly permitted only to a few 
distinguished men. They are most characteristic of 
the Dakota. Even a common eagle feather in the hair 
of a Dakota had some military significance according 



54 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



to its form and position. On the other hand, objects 
tied in a Blackfoot s hair were almost certain to have a 
charm value. So far as we know, among all tribes, 
objects placed in the hair of men usually had more than 
a mere aesthetic significance. 

Beads for the neck, ear ornaments, necklaces of 
claws, scarfs of otter and other fur. etc., were in general 
use. The face and exposed parts of the body were 
usually painted and sometimes the hair also. Women 
were fond of tracing the part line with vermilion. There 
was little tattooing and noses were seldom pierced. 
The ears, on the other hand, were usually perforated 
and adorned with pendants which among Dakota 
women were often long strings of shells reaching the 
waist line. 

Instead of combs, brushes made from the tails of 
porcupines were used in dressing the hair. The most 
common form was made by stretching the porcupine 
tail over a stick of wood. The hair of the face and 
others parts of the body was pulled out by small tweezers 

Industrial Arts. Under this head the reader may 
be reminded that among most American tribes each 
family produces and manufactures for itself. There is 
a more or less definite division between the work of men 
and women, but beyond that there is little specializa- 
tion. The individuals are not of equal skill but still each 
practises practically the whole gamut of industrial arts 
peculiar to his sex. This fact greatly increases the im- 
portance of such arts when considered as cultural traits. 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



55 




1 




1 



Fire= making. The methods of making fire are 
often of great cultural interest. So far as our data go, the 
method in this area was by the simple firedrill as shown 

in the Shoshoni collections* 
Fig. 17. Some of the Wood- 
land tribes used the bowdrill 
but so far, this has not been 
reported for the Plains. It 
may be well to note that to 
strike fire with flint one must 
have some form of iron and 
while pyrites was used by 
some Eskimo and other tribes 
of the far north, it seems to 
have been unknown in the 
Plains. Naturally, flint and 
steel were among the first 
articles introduced by white 
traders. 

Textiles and Skins. 
While in a general way, it is 
true that the Plains Indians 
used skins instead of cloth and 
basketry, it cannot be said 
that they were entirely un- 
familiar with the basketry art. 
Of true cloth, we have no trace. 
Blankets woven with strips ol rabbit fur have been 
noted (p. 43) and on certain Osage war bundles, we 
find covers coarsely woven of thick strands of buffalo 



em 



Fig. 17. Firedrill. North- 
ern Shoshoni. 



56 



INDIANS OF THE PLAIXS 



'ins. 



hair; these are about the only traces of true wea^ , 
On the other hand, baskets were more in evidence. The 
Shoshoni and Ute were rather skilful, making and using 
many varieties of baskets. The Xez Perce made a fine 
soft bag like their western neighbors. The Hidatsa, 
Mandan, and Arikara made a peculiar carrying basket of 
checker weave, and are also credited with small crude 
coiled baskets used in gambling games. It is believed 
by some students that the last were occasionally made 
by the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Dakota. The 
Osage have some twined bags, or soft baskets, in which 
ceremonial bundles are kept, but otherwise were not 
given to basketry. The Omaha formerly wove scarfs 
and belts. On the south, the Comanche are believed 
to have made a few crude baskets. Woven mats were 
almost unknown, except the simple willow backrests 
used by the Blackfoot, Mandan, Cheyenne, Gros 
Ventre, and others. These are, after all, but citations 
of exceptions most pronounced among the marginal 
tribes, the fact being that the Plains area as a whole is 
singularly weak in the textile arts. 

Since skins everywhere took the place of cloth, the 
dressing of pelts was an important industry. It was 
not only woman's work but her worth and virtue were 
estimated by her output. Soles of moccasins, parfleche, 
and other similar bags were made of stiff rawhide, the 
product of one of the simplest and perhaps the most 
primitive methods of treating skins. The uppers of 
moccasins, soft bags, thongs, etc. were of pliable 
texture, produced by a more elaborate and laborious 
process. 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



57 



For the rawhide finish the treatment is as follows : — 
Shortly after the removal of a hide, it is stretched out 




Fig. IS. Fleshing a Hide. 




Fig. 19. Using a Stone Scraper. 

on the ground near the tipi, hair side down, and held 
in place by wooden stakes or pins such as are used in 
staking down the covers of tipis. Clinging to the 



58 



IXDIAXS OF THE PLAIXS 



upturned flesh side of the hide are many fragments 
of muscular tissue, fat. and strands of connective 
tissue, variously blackened by coagulated blood. The 
first treatment is that of cleaning or fleshing. Shortly 
after the staking out. the surface is gone over with a 
fleshing tool by which the adhering flesh, etc.. is raked 
and hacked away. This is an unpleasant and laborious 
process requiring more brute strength than skill. 
Should the hide become too dry and stiff to work well, 
the surface is treated with warm water. After fleshing, 
the hide is left to cure and bleach in the sun for some 
days, though it may be occasionally saturated by 
pouring warm water over its surface. The next thing 
is to work the skin down to an even thickness by 
scraping with an adze-like tool. The stakes are usually 
pulled up and the hard stiff hide laid down under a 
sun-shade or other shelter. Standing on the hide, 
the woman leans over and with a sidewise movement 
removes the surface in chips or shavings, the action 
of the tool resembling that of a hand plane. After the 
flesh side has received this treatment, the hide is 
turned and the hair scraped away in the same manner. 
This completes the rawhide process and the subse- 
quent treatment is determined by the use to be made 
of it. 

The soft -tan finish as given to buffalo and deer hides 
lor robes, soft bags. etc.. is the same in its initial stages 
as the preceding. After fleshing and scraping, the 
rawhide is laid upon the ground and the surface rubbed 
over with an oily compound composed of brains and 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



59 



fat often mixed with liver. This is usually rubbed on 
with the hands. Any kind of fat may be used for 
this purpose though the preferred substance is as 




Fig. 20. Scraping a Hide. Blood. 



and warm water were rubbed over the rawhide as a 
substitute. The rawhide is placed in the sun, after 
the fatty compound has been thoroughly worked into 
the texture by rubbing with a smooth stone that the 



60 



INDIANS OF THE PLAIXS 



heat may aid in its further distribution. When quite 
dry, the hide is saturated with warm water and for a 
time kept rolled up in a bundle, In this state, it 
usually shrinks and requires a great deal of stretching 
to get it back to its approximate former size. This 
is accomplished by pulling with the hands and feet, 
two persons being required to handle a large skin. 
After this, come the rubbing and drying processes. 
The surface is vigorously rubbed with a rough-edged 
stone until it presents a clean-grained appearance. 
The skin is further dried and whitened by sawing back 
and forth through a loop of twisted sinew or thong- 
tied to the under side of an inclined tipi pole. This 
friction develops considerable heat, thereby drying 
and softening the texture. As this and the preceding 
rubbing are parts of the same process then chronological 
relation is not absolute, but the usual order was as 
given above. The skin is then ready for use. 

Skins with the hair on are treated in the same manner 
as above, except that the adze-tool is not applied to the 
hair side. A large buffalo robe was no light object 
and was handled with some difficulty, especially in the 
stretching, in consequence of which they were some- 
times split down the middle and afterwards sewed 
together again. 

Among some of the Village tribes, it seems to have 
been customary to stretch the skin on a four-sided frame 
and place it upright as shown in the exhibit for the 
Thompson Indians • south side of the Jesup North 
Pacific Hall). The exact distribution of this trait is not 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



61 



known but it has been credited to the Eastern Dakota, 
Hidatsa, and Mandan. The Blaekfoot sometimes used 
it in winter, but laid flat upon the ground. 

Buckskin was prepared in the same manner as among 
the forest tribes. The tribes of the western plains 'were 
especially skilful in coloring the finished skin by smok- 
ing. There were many slight variations in all the 
above processes. 




Fig. 21. Hide Scrapers. 



The adze-like scraper was in general use throughout 
the Plains and occurs elsewhere only among bordering 
tribes. Hence, it is peculiar to the buffalo hunting 
tribes. The handle was of antler, though occasionally 
of wood, and the blade of iron. Information from some 
Blaekfoot and Dakota Indians indicates that in former 
times the blades were of chipped stone, but the chipped 
scraper found in archaeological collections from the 
Plains area cannot be fastened to the handle in the 
same manner as the iron blades, the latter being placed 
on the inner, or under side, while the shape of the 



62 



IXDIAX5 OF THE PLAINS 



chipped stone blade seems to indicate that it was placed 
on the outside. Hence, the former use of stone blades 
for these scrapers must be considered doubtful. The 
iron blades are bound to the wedge-shaped haft, which 
each downward blow, when the tool is in use, forces 
tightly into the binding. When the pressure is re- 
moved the blade and binding may slip off. To prevent 
this, some tools are provided with a cord running from 
the end of the handle once or twice around its middle 
and thence to the binding of the blade. Again a 
curved iron blade is used, one end of which is bound 
near the middle of the handle. These types Fig;. 21 
are widely distributed throughout the Plains, but the 
curved iron blade seems to be most frequent among 
the Arapaho and Cheyenne, and wooden handles 
among the Comanche. 

On the other hand. fleshing tools, chisel-shaped with 
notched edges, were used throughout Canada east of 
the Rocky Mountains, and in many parts of the United 
States. Hence, they cannot be taken as peculiar to 
the Plains. The older type of flesher is apparently the 
one made entirely of bone, while the later ones were 
made entirely of iron. Sometimes an intermediate 
form is found hi which a small metal blade is fastened 
to the end of a bone shaft Tig. 22 . The shaft of the 
flesher is usually covered with rawhide and to its end 
is attached a loop for the wrist. The iron flesher seems 
to be the only type peculiar to the Indians of the Plains. 
The distribution of the bone flesher is such that its 
most probable origin may be assigned to the Algonkin 
tribes of the Great Lakes and northward. 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



63 



The production of soft buckskin usually necessitates 
a peculiar process called beaming, in which the skin is 
laid over the rounded surface of a tree section and 
scraped with a tool suggesting a draw-shave. Beaming 




Fig. 22. Fleshing Tools. The two short fleshers are of bone: the 
one on the left is of iron : and that of the right, of bone, with an iron blade. 

tools are thus identified with the dressing of deerskins 
and in this respect stand distinct from the adze-tool 
used in dressing buffalo skins. They seem to be used 
wherever the dressing of deerskins is prevalent and are 



64 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



best known under the following types : — a, split leg bones ; 

b, combined tibia and fibula of deer or similar animal; 

c, rib bone; d, wooden stick with metal blade in middle, 
stick usually curved. 

From the collections in this Museum it seems that 
the split leg bone type is not found in the Plains. 
Should further inquiry show this to be the case, it 
would be a matter of some interest since the split bone 
type is found in archaeological collections from British 
Columbia, Ohio, and New York, and is therefore of great 
antiquity as well as wide distribution. In any case the 
data for historic times indicate that some form of 
beaming tool is a concomitant of deerskin dressing from 
Alaska and California (the Hupa) to Labrador, and 
Pennsylvania. 

The rubbing with a rough stone is the usual treat- 
ment accorded deerskins, and cannot be considered 
peculiar to the Indians of the Plains. 

Tailoring. The garments of the Indians of the 
Plains were simple in construction, and the cutting of 
the garment was characterized by an effort to make the 
natural shape of the tanned skin fit into the desired 
garment, with as little waste as possible. (Fig. 15.) We 
do not know how skins were cut before the introduction 
of metal knives by white traders. Needles were not 
used by the women among the Plains Indians, but the 
thread was pushed through holes made with bodkins 
or awls. In former times these awls were made of 
bone; the sewing was with sinew thread made by 
shredding out the long tendons from the leg of the 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



65 



buffalo and deer. When sewing. Blaekfoot women 
had at hand a piece of dried tendon from which they 
pulled the shreds with their teeth, softened them in 
their mouths and then twisted them into a thread by 
rolling between the palms of their hands. The moisten- 
ing of the sinew in the mouth not only enabled the 
women to twist the thread tightly, but also caused the 
sinew to expand so that when it dried in the stitch it 
shrank and chew the stitches tight. The woman's 
ordinary sewing outfit Avas carried in a soft bag of 
buffalo skin and consisted of bodkins, a piece of sinew, 
and a knife. Bodkins were sometimes carried in small 
beaded cases as shown in the exhibit. 

The Use of Rawhide. In the use of rawhide for 
binding and halting, the Plains tribes seem almost 
unique. When making mauls and stone-headed clubs 
a piece of green or wet hide is firmly sewed on and as 
this dries its natural shrinkage sets the parts firmly. 
This is nicely illustrated in saddles. Thus, rawhide 
here takes the place of nails, twine, cement, etc., in other 
cultures. 

The Parfleche. A number of characteristic bags 
were made of rawhide, the most conspicuous being the 
parfleche. Its simplicity of construction is inspiring and 
its usefulness scarcely to be over-estimated. The ap- 
proximate form for a parfleche is shown in Fig. 23. 
and its completed form in Fig. 24. The side outlines as 
in Fig. 23 are irregular and show great variations, 
none of which can be taken as certainly characteristic. 
To fill the parfleche. it is opened out as in Fig. 23. and 



66 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 




Fig. 24. A Parfleche. 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



67 



the contents arranged in the middle. The large flap 
is then brought over and held by lacing a\ a". The 
ends are then turned over and laced, b\ b". The 
closed parfleche may then be secured by both or either 
of the looped thongs at c', e". 

Primarily, parfleche were used for holding dried meat , 
dried berries, tallow, etc., though utensils and other be- 
longings found their way into them when convenient. In 
recent years, they seem to have more of a decorative 
than a practical value: or rather, according to our 
impression, they are cherished as mementos of buffalo 
days, the great good old time of Indian memory, 
always appropriate and acceptable as gifts. The usual 
fate of a gift parfleche is to be cut into moccasin soles. 
With the possible exception of the Osage, the parfleche 
was common among all these tribes but seldom en- 
countered elsewhere. 

Rawhide Bags. A rectangular bag (Fig. 25) was 
also common and quite uniform even to the modes of 
binding. They were used by women rather than by 
men. The larger ones may contain skin-dressing tools, 
the smaller ones, sewing or other small implements, 
etc. Sometimes, they were used in gathering berries 
and other vegetable foods. A cylindrical rawhide case 
used for headdresses and other ceremonial objects is 
characteristic (Fig. 26;. All these objects made of 
rawhide are further characterized by their highly 
individualized painted decorations (p. 127). 



6S 



IXDIAXS OF THE PLAIXS 



Soft Bags. The Dakota made some picturesque 
soft bags, used in pairs, and called "A bag for every 
possible thing.*' The collection contains many fine 
examples some of which are of buffalo hide. All are 
skilfully decorated with Squills or beads (Fig. 27). 




Fig. 26. 



Fig. 25. Bag made of Rawhide. 
Fig. 26. A Case made of Rawhide. 

This type occurs among the Assiniboin, Gros Ventre, 
Dakota. Crow, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Ute, and Wind 
River Shoshoni in almost identical forms, but among the 
Xez Perce and Bannock with decided differences. 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



69 



Perhaps equally typical of the area were the long 
slender bags for smoking outfits. These are especially 
conspicuous in Dakota collections where they range 
from 80 to 150 cm. in length. At the ends, they have 
rows of rawhide strips wrapped with quills and below 




Fig. 27. Bag decorated with Porcupine Quills and Beads. Dakota. 



a fringe of buckskin (Tig. 28). The Dakota type has 
been noted among the Assiniboin, Cheyenne, Crow, 
and Hidatsa, but rarely among the Ute, Arapaho, or 
Shoshoni. The Kiowa and Comanche make one, but 



70 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



with an entirely different fringe. The Blackf oot, North- 
ern Shoshoni, Plains-Cree, and Sarsi use a smaller pouch 
of quite a different type ; also reported from the Saulteaux 




Fig. 28. Pipe and Tobacco Bags. Dakota. 



and Cree of the Woodland area. These objects are, 
however, so often presented to visiting Indians that 
collectors find it difficult to separate the intrusions 
from the native samples for any particular tribe. 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



71 



We have some reason for thinking that the Dakota 
type is quite recent, for the Teton claim that formerly 
the entire skins of young antelope, deer ; and even birds 
and beavers were used as smoking bags. Some ex- 
amples of such bags have been collected and are quite 
frequent in the ceremonial outfits of the Blackfoot. 
Again, the collections from many tribes contain bags 
made from the whole skins of unborn buffalo and deer, 
used for gathering berries and storing dried food, from 
which it is clear that a general type of seamless bag was 
once widely used. All this raises the question as to 
whether the introduction of metal cutting and sewing 
implements during the historic period may not have 
influenced the development of these long, rectangular 
fringed pipe bags. 

The strike-a-light pouch often made of modern 
commercial leather is common to the Wind River 
Shoshoni, "Ute, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Dakota, Gros 
Ventre, and Assiniboin (Fig. 29). Among the Ara- 
paho and Gros Ventre we also find a large pouch of 
similar designs. Again, the Northern Shoshoni and 
Blackfoot are not included, neither are these pouches 
frequent among the Kiowa and Comanche. 

Many of the paint bags used by the Blackfoot re- 
semble their pipe bags even to the fringe and the flaps 
at the mouth. However, many paint bags in cere- 
monial outfits are without fringes or decorations of 
any kind. Some have square cut bases and some 
curved: their lengths range from 8 to 15 cm. In some 
cases, those with square cut bases are provided with a 



72 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



pendant at each corner. Decorated paint bags of the 
fringed type occur among the Gros Ventre, Assiniboin, 
Arapaho, Sarsi, Dakota, and Shoshoni. A specimen 
without the fringe appears in the Comanche collection. 
The Blackfoot, Sarsi, Gros Ventre, and Assiniboin 
use almost exclusively, bags with the flaps at the top, 
and bearing similar decorations. The Arapaho and 
Dakota incline to this type but also use those with 
straight tops. Among the Shoshoni decorated paint 



bags are rare, but two specimens we have observed 
belong to these respective types. So far, it seems that 
the Arapaho alone, use the peculiar paint bag with a 
triangular tail, suggesting the ornamented pendants to 
the animal skin medicine bags of the Algonkin in the 
Woodland area. However, we have seen a large bag 
of this pattern attributed to the Bannock. 

A round-bottomed pouch with a decorated field and 
a transverse fringe was sometimes used for paint by the 
Blackfoot. The decorated part is on stiff rawhide 




Fig. 29. Strike-a-light Pouch. Arapaho. 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



73 



while the upper is of soft leather, the sides and mouth 
of which are edged by two and three rows of beads 
respectively. This seems to be an unusual form for 
the Blackfoot and rare in other collections ; while the 
related form, a large rounded bag, frequently encount- 
ered in Dakota and Assiniboin collections has not been 
observed among the northern group of tribes. The 
Blackfoot collection contains two small, flat rectangular 
cases with fringes. One of these was said to have been 
made for a mirror, the other for matches. However, 
such cases were formerly used by many tribes for 
carrying the ration ticket issued by the government. 
Their distribution seems to have been general in the 
Plains. 

Some tribes used a long double saddle bag, highly 
decorated and fringed. There was usually a slit at 
one side for the horn of the saddle. So far, these have 
been reported for the Blackfoot, Sarsi, Crow, -Dakota 
and Cheyenne. They are mentioned as common in 
the Missouri area by Larpenteur, who implies that 
the shape is copied after those used by whites. Morice 
credits the Carrier of the Mackenzie culture area with 
similar bags used on dogs. 

It will be noted that in style and range of bags and 
pouches, the Village group of these Indians (p. 19) tends 
to stand apart from the other groups much more dis- 
tinctly than the intermediate tribes of the west, for 
between the latter and the typical Plains tribes, there 
are few marked differences. 



74 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



Household Utensils. In a preceding section, re- 
ference was made to baskets, which in parts of the Pla- 
teau area on the west, often served as pots for boiling 
food. They were not. of course, set upon the fire, the 
water within being heated by hot stones. Pottery was 
made by the Hidatsa, Mandan. and Ankara, and probably 
by all the other tribes of the Milage group. There is 
some historical evidence that it was once made by the 
Blackfoot and there are traditions of its use among the 
Gros A entre. Cheyenne, and Assiniboin; but. with the 
possible exception of the Blackfoot. it has not been 
definitely credited to any of the nine typical tribes. 

V\ e have no definite information as to how food- were 
boiled among these non-pottery making tribes before 
trader- introduced kettles. Many tribes, however, 
knew how to hang a fresh paunch upon sticks and boil 
in it with -tones Fig. 30 . Some used a fresh skin in a 
hole. Thus Catlin says: — 

There is a very curious custom a 
which they have taken their name ; a r 
bors, from a singular mode they have 
done in the following manner: — when 
the ground about the size of a common 
of the animal, as taken from the back 
pressed down with the hands close ai 
water. The meat to be boiled is then 
and in a fire which is built near by. sev 
red heat, which- are successively dipp> 
the meat is boiled; from winch singular i 
way? have given them the appellation o 

The Traders have recently suppli 
even long before that, the Mandans hi 
of manufacturing very good and servi 
gether have entirelv done awav r with" 



mongst the Assinneboins. from 
iame given them by their neigh- 
of boiling their meat, which is 




d large stones are heated to a 
and held in the water until 

these people with pots; and 
instructed them in the secret 
ible earthen pots; which to- 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



75 



festivals: where they seera. like all others of the human family, 
to take pleasure in cherishing and perpetuating their ancient customs, 
(p. 54.) 




Fig. 30. Boiling with Hot Stones in a Paunch supported bv Sticks. 
Blackfoot. 

These methods were known to .the Arapaho. Crow. 
Dakota. Gros Ventre. Blackfoot, and Assiniboin. 
Doubtless they were generally practised elsewhere in 



76 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



the Plains. Since California and the whole Pacific 
coast northward as well as the interior plateaus had 
stone-boiling as a general cultural trait, this distribu- 
tion in the Plains is easily accounted for. On the other 
hand/ the eastern United States appears as a great 
pottery area whose influence reached the Village tribes. 

So excepting the pottery-making Village tribes, the 
methods of cooking in the Plains area before traders 
introduced kettles seem to have comprised broiling 
over the fire, baking in holes in the ground, and boiling 
in vessels of skin, basketry, or bark. For the first, 




Fig. 31. Buffalo Horn Spoon. 



pieces of meat were impaled on a stick and either held 
over the fire or the butt of the stick thrust in the ground. 
Cooking in a hole was universal in the basin of the 
Columbia River, especially for edible roots. A pit was 
dug and a fire built in and over it. When a great mass of 
embers and ashes had accumulated they were scraped 
away, the hole lined with leaves or bark, the roots put 
in and covered, after which the ashes and embers were 
scraped over all. After the proper interval the pit was 
opened and the food served. The tribes on the western 
border of the Plains, the Blackfoot, Shoshoni, etc., also 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



77 



cooked roots in this way. but in common with the 
typical tribes used the same method for meat. Thus we 
see that neither pottery nor metal vessels are essential 
to good cooking. 

Buffalo horn spoons were used by all and whenever 
available ladles and dishes were fashioned from moun- 
tain sheep horn. Those of buffalo horn ivere used in 
eating: those of mountain sheep horn usually for 
dipping, skimming and other culinary processes. In 
making these spoons, the horn was generally scorched 
over a fire until some of the gluey matter tried out, and 
then trimmed to the desired shape with a knife. Xext 
it was boiled in water until soft, when the bowl was 
shaped over a water-worn stone of suitable size and the 
handle bent into the proper shape. The sizes and forms 
of such spoons varied a great deal, but no important 
tribal difference- have been observed. In traveling, 
spoons, as well as bowls, were usually carried in bags 
of buffalo skin. Among the Village tribes, wooden 
spoons were common, similar to those from Woodland 
collections. Bowls were fashioned from wood but were 
rare among the southern and western tribes. Knots of 
birch and other hard wood found occasionally along 
rivers were usually used for bowls. These were worked 
into shape by burning, scraping down with bits of stone, 
and finally polishing. They were used in eating, each 
person usually owning one which he carried with him 
when invited to a feast. Occasionally, bowls were 
made of mountain sheep horn: but such were the excep- 
tion, rather than the rule. The finest bowls seem to 



7S 



IXDIAXS OF THE PLAIXS 



have been made by the Dakota, and the crudest by the 
Comanche and Ute. 

Tools. It is believed that formerly knives were 
made of bone and stone, but we have no very definite 
data. In fact, many tribes secured knives and other 
trade articles by barter with other Indians long before 
they were visited by explorers: hence, we have little 
in the way of historical data. 

Some years ago a Museum field-worker chanced 
upon an old blind man smoothing down a walking 
stick with a stone flake, an interesting survival of 
primitive life. We can scarcely realize how quickly 
the civilized trader changed the material culture of 
the Indians. Perrot. one of the first French explorer- 
visiting the eastern border of this area, gives the fol- 
lowing report of an address he made to some Fox and 
other Indians. "I see this fine village filled with young 
men. who are. I am sure, as courageous as they are 
well built: and who will, without doubt, not fear their 
enemies if they carry French weapons. It is for these 
young men that I leave my gun. which they must 
regard as the pledge of my esteem for their valor: they 
must use it if they are attacked. It will also be more 
satisfactory in hunting cattle [buffalo] and other ani- 
mal- than are all the arrows that you use. To you who 
are old men I leave my kettle: I carry it everywhere 
without fear of breaking it. You will cook in it the 
meat that your young men bring from the chase, and 
the food which you offer to the Frenchmen who come 
to visit you. He tossed a dozen awls and knives to 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



79 



the women, and said to them: 'Throw aside your 
bone bodkins: these French awls will be much easier 
to use. These knives will be more useful to you in 
killing beavers and in cutting your meat than are the 
pieces of stone that you use/ Then, throwing to them 
some rassade (beads): "See: these will better adorn 
your children and girls than do their usual ornaments.'" 
(p. 330j . This is a fair sample of what occurred every- 
where. On the other hand, the Indian did not so 
readily change his art, religion, and social customs. 

Perhaps the best early observer of primitive tools 
was Captain Lewis who writes of the Northern Sho- 
shoni in the Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark 
Expedition, Vol. 3, p. 19, as follows:— 

The metal which we found in possession of these people consisted 
of a few indifferent knives, a few brass kettles some arm bands of iron 
and brass, a few buttons, woarn as ornaments in their hair, a spear or 
two of a foot in length and some iron and brass arrow points which 
they informed me they obtained in exchange for horses from the Crow 
or Rocky Mountain Indians on the yellowstone River, the bridlebits 
and stirreps they obtained from the Spaniards, tho these were but few, 
many of them made use of flint for knives, and with this instrument, 
skined the animals they killed, dressed their fish and made their arrows; 
this flint is of no regular form, and if they can only obtain a part of it, 
an inch or two in length that will cut they are satisfyed. they renew 
the edge by flecking off the flint by means of the point of an Elk's or 
deer's horn, with the point of a deer or Elk's horn they also form their 
arrow points of the flint, with a quickness and neatness that is really 
astonishing, we found no axes nor hatchets among them: what wood 
they cut was done either with stone or Elk's horn, the latter they use 
always to rive or split their wood. 

Among the collections from the Blackfoot and Gros 
A entre, we find models of bone knives made by old 
people who claimed to have used such (Fig. 32). There 
are also a few flakes of stone said to have been so used 
when metal knives were not at hand. 



so 



INDIANS OF THE PLAIXS 



Xo aboriginal axes have been preserved but they are 
said to have been made of stone and bone. The hafted 
stone maul (Fig. 4) is everywhere present and we are 
told that the ax was hafted in a similar manner. Drill- 
ing was performed with arrow points and wood was 
dressed by stone scrapers. 

Though we may be sure that the tribes of the Plains 
were, like those in most parts of prehistoric America, 
living in a stone age at the time of discovery, it is 
probable that they made some use of copper. The 
eastern camps of the Eastern Dakota were near the 
copper mines of Lake Superior and in 1661 Radisson, 




Fig. 32. Bone Knife. 



a famous explorer, saw copper ornaments while among 
then villages in Minnesota. Prehistoric copper imple- 
ments are numerous in Minnesota and Wisconsin but 
such objects are rare within the Plains area. Yet, all 
these implements were of pure copper and therefore too 
soft to displace stone and bone, the Plains Indian at all 
events living in a true stone age culture. 

Digging Stick. From a primitive point of view, 
the digging stick is most interesting. It has been reported 
from the Blackfoot, Gros Ventre, Hidatsa, Mandan, 
and Dakota as a simple pointed stick, used chiefly 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



81 



in digging edible roots and almost exclusively by women. 
(It is important to note the symbolic survival of this 
implement in the sun dance bundle of the Blackfoot, 
p. 117). Some curious agricultural implements are to 
be found in the Hidatsa collection, especially hoes made 
from the shoulder blades of buffalo. The latter have 
been reported from the Pawnee, Arikara, and Mandan. 

Pipes. The Eastern Dakota have long been famous 
for the manufacture of pipes from catlinite or red pipe- 
stone which even in prehistoric times seems to have 
been distributed by trade. Some pipes in the Museum 
were collected in 1840 and are of the types described 
by Catlin and other early writers. Many of the 
Village tribes used pottery pipes. Among the Assini- 
boin, Gros Ventre, and Blackfoot, a black stone was 
used for a Woodland type of pipe. In the Plateau area, 
the pipes were smaller than elsewhere and usually 
made from steatite. The Hidatsa and Mandan used 
a curiously shaped pipe, as may be seen from the 
collection. It is much like the Arapaho sacred tribal 
flat pipe. Occasionally, a straight tubular pipe was 
used. Among the Cheyenne in particular, this was a 
bone reinforced with sinew. Also, it seems to have 
been generally known to the Kiowa and Arapaho. 
Among the Blackfoot and Dakota, it is usually a simple 
stone tube with a stem. This form is everywhere 
exceptional and usually ceremonial. 

The large medicine-pipe, or ceremonial, of the Black- 
foot Indians, conspicuously displayed in the hall is 
scarcely to be considered under this head (see p. Ill), 



82 INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 

as also the curious pipe-like wands of the Dakota, the 
Omaha (Demuth collection), and Pawnee. 

Tobacco was raised (p. 30) by a few tribes. This 
was mixed with the dried bark of the red willow, the 
leaves of the bear berry or with larb. Some wild 
species of Nicotiana were gathered by the Plateau tribes. 
In literature, the term kinnikinnick (Algonkian Ojibway, 
meaning "what is mixed ") is applied to this mixture, 
From the very first, traders introduced commercial 
forms of tobacco which have been in general use ever 
since. 

Weapons. Reference has been made to bows, clubs, 
and lances (p. 26) for killing buffalo; hence, it is only 
necessary to add that they were also the chief weapons 
in war. Among nearly all the tribes a circular shield 
of buffalo hide was used, though with so many ceremo- 
nial associations, that it is not clear whether the Indian 
prized it most for its charm value or for its mechanical 
properties, since in most cases he seems to have placed 
his faith in the powers symbolized in the devices painted 
thereon. No armor seems to have been used. The 
typical Plains Indian rode into battle, stripped to 
breechcloth and moccasins, with whatever symbolic 
headgear, charms, and insignia he was entitled to. 
However, the Blackfoot have traditions of having 
protected themselves from arrows by several skin 
shirts, one over the other, while among the Northern 
Shoshoni, both men and horses were protected by 
"many folds of dressed antelope skin united with glue 
and sand." The Pawnee have also been credited with 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



83 



hardened skin coats. Since armor and helmets were 
used in some parts of the North Pacific Coast area 
and in parts of the Plateaus, it is natural to encounter 




Fig. 33. A Buffalo Hide Shield from the Northern Blackfoot. 



armor on the northwestern margin of the Plains, 
Poisoned arrows have been credited to the Plateau 
tribes and a few of those in the western Plains. 



84 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



Games. Amusements and gambling are represented 
in collections by many curious devices. Adults rarely 
played for amusement, leaving such pastime to children; 
they themselves played for stakes. Most American 
games are more widely distributed than many other 
cultural traits; but a few seem almost entirely peculiar 
to the Plains. 

A game in which a forked anchor-like stick is thrown 
at a rolling ring was known to the Dakota, Omaha, 
and Pawnee. So far, it has not been reported from 
other tribes. 

Another game of limited distribution is the large 
hoop with a double pole, the two plavers endeavoring 
to place the poles so that when the hoop falls, it will 
make a count according to which of the four marks in 
the circumference are nearest a pole. This has been 
reported for the Arapaho. Dakota, and Omaha. Among 
the Dakota, this game seems to have been associated 
with magical ceremonies for "calling the buffalo'' 
and also played a part in the ghost dance (p. 120) move- 
ment. The Arapaho have also a sacred hoop game 
associated with the sun dance. Other forms of this 
game in which a single pole is used have been reported 
from almost every tribe in the Plains. It occurs also 
outside this area. Yet. in the Plains it takes special 
forms in different localities. Thus the Blackfoot and 
their neighbors used a very small spoked ring with an 
arrow for the pole, the Mandan used a small plain 
ring but with a very long pole, while the Comanche 
used a large life-preserver like hoop with a sectioned 
club for a pole. 



MATERIAL CULTURE 



85 



The netted hoop at which darts were thrown is 
almost universal in the Plains, but occurs elsewhere as 
well. Other popular games were stick dice and the 
hand game (hiding the button). Among the Blackfoot 
and their neighbors, the hand game was a favorite 
gambling device and handled by team work; i. e., one 
large group played against another. 

By a comparative study of games, it would be pos- 
sible to divide the tribes of the Plains into a number of 
geographical subgroups. On the other hand, it is clear 
that taken as a whole, these tribes have sufficient 
similarities in games to justify grouping them in a 
distinct culture area. 

We have now passed in review the main character- 
istics of material culture among the Plains tribes. 
There are many other important details having func- 
tional and comparative significance for Avhose consid- 
eration the reader must be referred to the special 
literature. We have seen how the typical, or central, 
group of tribes (Blackfoot, Gros Ventre, Assiniboin, 
Crow, Teton-Dakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, 
and Comanche) seems to have few traits in common 
with adjoining culture areas, while the border tribes 
manifest a mixture of the traits emphasized among 
the typical group and those most characteristic of 
other culture areas. For example, the typical material 
culture of the Plains is peculiar in the absence of pot- 
tery, the textile arts, agriculture, and the use of wild 
grains and seeds, all of which appear to varying degrees 
in one or the other of the marginal groups. 



86 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



In general, it appears that in the Plains, traits of 
material culture fall within geographical rather than 
linguistical and political boundaries. While all cultural 
traits seem to show the same tendency, this is most 
pronounced in material culture. Thus, from the point 
of view of this chapter the Plains-Cree may merit a 
place in the typical group, but in some other respects 
hold an intermediate position. All the other tribes with- 
out exception manifest some important traits of material 
culture found in other areas. 

In part the causes for the observed greater uniformity 
in material culture seem to lie in the geographical 
environment, since food, industries, and some house- 
hold arts are certain to be influenced by the character 
of the materials available. This, however, cannot be the 
whole story, for pottery clay is everywhere within easy 
reach, yet the typical tribes were not potters. They 
also wanted not the opportunities to learn the art from 
neighboring tribes. It seems more probable that cer- 
tain dominant factors in their lives exercised a selec- 
tive influence over the many cultural traits offered at 
home and abroad, thus producing a culture well adapted 
to the place and to the time. 



Chapter II. 



SOCIAL ORGANIZATION. 
USEOI collections cannot illustrate this im- 



portant phase of culture : but since no compre- 



hensive view of the subject can be had without 
its consideration, we must give it some space. It is 
customary to treat of all habits or customs having to do 
with the family organization, the community, and what 
we call the state, under the head of social organization. 
So. in order that the reader may form some general idea 
of social conditions in this area, we shall review some of 
the discussed points. Unfortunately, the data for many 
tribes are meager so that a complete review cannot be 
made. The Blackfoot, Sarsi, Crow, Northern Shoshoni, 
Xez Perce, Assiniboin, Teton-Dakota, Omaha, Hidat- 
sa, Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Kiowa have been carefully 
investigated, but of the remaining tribes, we know very 
little. 

As previously stated, it is customary to accept the 
political units of the Indian as tribes or independent 
nations. Thus, while the Crow recognize several 
subdivisions, they feel that they are one people and 
support a council or governing body for the whole. The 
Blackfoot, on the other hand, are composed of three 
distinct political divisions, the Piegan, Blood, and 
Blackfoot, with no superior government, yet they feel 
that they are one people with common interests and 




87 



88 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



since they have a common speech and precisely similar 
cultures, it is customary to ignore the political units 
and designate them by the larger term. The Hidatsa. 
one of the Village group, have essentially the same 
language as the Crow, but have many different traits of 
culture and while conscious of a relationship, do not 
recognize any political sympathies. Again, in the 
Dakota, we have a more complicated scheme. They 
recognize first seven divisions as -council fires" 
Mdewakanton, Wahpeton, Wahpekute, Sisseton, Yank- 
ton. Yanktonai. and Teton. These, as indicated by 
separate fires, were politically independent, but did 
not make war upon each other. To the whole, they 
gave the name Dakota, or. "those who are our friends." 
Again, they grouped the first four into a larger whole, 
the Eastern Dakota Isayanti . the Yankton and Yank- 
tonai formed a second group, and the Teton a third. 
However, the culture of the second and third groups is 
so similar that it is quite admissible to include them 
under the title Teton-Dakota. All the seven divisions 
were again subdivided, especially the Teton, which had 
at least eight large practically independent divisions. 

Thus, it is clear, that no hard and fast distinctions 
can be made between independent and dependent political 
units, for in some cases the people feel as if one and 
yet support what seem to be separate governments. 
This is not by any means peculiar to the Plains. Since 
anthropology, is. after all. chiefly a study of culture, 
it is usual to place under one head all units having 
exactly the same culture when otherwise closelv related 



SO C LAX OB CONIZATION 



89 



by language and blood. Our previous list of tribes, 
therefore, embraces groups, all subdivisions of which 
have approximately equal cultural values for the whole 
series of traits p. 19 . 

Using the term, tribe, to designate units with in- 
dependent governing bodies, we find that these tribes are 
in turn composed of small units, each under the leader- 
ship of a chief, seconded by a few head men. These sub- 
divisions are often designated in technical literature as 
bands — a chief and his followers. It frequently happens 
that the members of these bands inherit their member- 
ships according to a fixed system. When this is reckoned 
through the mother, or in the female line, the term clan 
is used instead of band: when reckoned in the male 
line. gens. The clans and gentes of the Plains are of 
special interest because of the tendency to regulate 
marriage so that it must be exogamic. or between 
individuals from different clans and gentes. and also 
because of the difficulty in discovering whether this is 
due to the mere accident of blood relationship or some 
other obscure tendency. On this point, there is a large 
body of special literature. 

An exogamic gentile system has been reported for 
the Omaha. Ponca. Iowa. Oto. Missouri. Osage, and 
Kansas. An exogamic clan system prevails among the 
Hidatsa. Crow, and the Mandan. Among the Plateau 
group, the Arapaho. Kiowa. Comanche, and probably 
also among the Dakota and Plains-Cree we have only 
bands without marriage restrictions. In addition, we 
have some problematical cases in the Blackfoot. Gros 



90 



IXDIAXS OF THE PLAIXS 



Ventre, Assiniboin, and perhaps others, where there 
seems to be a tendency toward a gentile exogamous 
system, but our data are not sufficiently full to determine 
whether these are intermediate or true transitional types. 




Fig. 34. The Cheyenne Camp Circle. (Dorsey). 

The Camp Circle. Among the typical tribes and 
even in most places where tipis were used, we find an 
organized camp, or circle. In its pure form, this is a tribal 



SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 



91 



scheme by which each "band" has a fixed place or order, 
generally enumerated sunwise, from the opening of the 
circle in the easternmost segment (Fig. 34). When form- 
ing a camp, the leaders selected the site and marked off 
the two sides of the opening, or gap. whence the respec- 
tive bands fell-in, in proper order and direction, to form 
the circle. At the center was a council tent, where the 
governing body met and at symmetrical points were the 
tipis of the "soldiers." or police. While the camp circle 
was the most striking and picturesque trait of Plains 
culture, it was probably no more than a convenient 
form of organized camp for a political group composed 
of " bands." It is likely that some of the typical tribes 
developed it first, whence, because of its practical 
value, it was adopted by the others and even some of 
the Village and Plateau tribes when they used tipis. 
It is. however, peculiar to the Plains. 

Marriage. There seems to be nothing distinctive in 
the marriage customs of the Plains, even in the matter of 
exogamy (p. 89). A man was permitted to marry as 
many women as he desired, yet relatively few men had 
more than three wives. Everywhere the rule was to 
marry sisters, if possible, since it is said they were less 
likely to quarrel amongst themselves. As no slaves were 
kept and servants were unknown, the aristocractic 
family could only meet the situation by increasing 
the number of wives. Further, it was usual to regard 
the first wife as the head of the family, the others as 
subordinate. 



92 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



The care and rearing of children is a universal phase 
of human life. Among the collections will be found 
cradles, or carriers, for the protection of the newly 
born, often highly ornamented. Dolls and minia- 
ture objects such as travois. saddles, and bags, were 
common as toys and often find their way into museums. 
A curious custom, not confined to the Plains, was to 
preserve the navel cord in a small ornamented pouch, 
hung to the cradle or about the neck of the child. 
Among the Dakota, these usually took the forms of 
turtles and lizards, among the Blackfoot. snakes 
and horned-toads, etc. Examples are shown in the 
various collections. 

Naming children is everywhere an important matter. 
I sually an old person is called in to do this and selects 
a single name. When a boy reaches adolescence, a new 
name is often given and again, if as an adult, he per- 
forms some meritorious deed. Girls seldom change 
their names, not even at marriage. Among many 
tribes there are special ceremonies for girls when 
adolescence sets in. 

When an Indian is ill a doctor is called in. He is 
supposed to have received power from some supernatu- 
ral source and sings songs and prays at the bedside. 
Sometimes vegetable substances are given as medicine, 
but these are usually harmless, the faith being placed 
entirely in the religious formula. 

At death the body was dressed and painted, then 
wrapped in a robe and placed upon a scaffold, in a tree, 
or upon a hill, None of the Plains tribes seem to have 



SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 



93 



practised cremation and but a few of them placed 
the bodies underground. In fact, the Government 
authorities experienced great difficulty in inducing the 
modern Indians to inter their dead, as it is against then- 
old belief, in that it would interfere with the passage of 
the spirit to the other world. 

Government. The political organization was 
rather loose and in general quite democratic. Each band, 
gens, or clan informally recognized an indefinite number of 
men as head men, one or more of whom were formally 
vested with representative powers in the tribal council. 
Among the Dakota, there was a kind of society of older 
men, self-electing, who legislated on all important 
matters. They appointed four of their number to 
exercise the executive functions. The Omaha had a 
somewhat similar system. The Cheyenne had four 
chiefs of equal rank and a popularly elected council 
of forty members. Among the Blackfoot we seem to 
have a much less systematic arrangement, the leading 
men of each band forming a general council which 
in turn recognized one individual as chief. Of the west- 
ern tribes the Northern Shoshoni, at least, had even a 
less formal system. 

Though there were in the Plains some groups spoken 
of as confederacies by pioneers; viz., the Blackfoot, 
Sarsi, and Gros Ventre; the seven Dakota tribes; the 
Pawnee group; the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Kiowa, and 
Comanche, none of these seem to have been more 
than alliances. At least, there was nothing like the 
celebrated League of the Iroquois in the Woodland 
area. 



94 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



Soldier Bands or Societies. We have previously 
mentioned the camp police. The Dakota governing 
society, for example, appointed eight or more men as 
soldiers or marshals to enforce their regulations at all 
times. There were also a number of men's societies or 
fraternities of a military and ceremonial character upon 
one or more of which the tribal government might also 
call for such service. As these societies had an organiza- 
tion of their own, it was only necessary to deal with their 
leaders. The call to service was for specific occasions and 
the particular society selected automatically ceased to 
act when the occasion passed. The Blackfoot, Gros 
Ventre, Assiniboin, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, Hidatsa, 
Mandan, Arikara, and Pawnee, also had each a number 
of societies upon whom the governing body called for 
police service. In addition to these specific parallels, we 
find that all tribes using the camp circle, or organized 
camp, when hunting buffalo, also appointed police who 
executed orders in a similar manner. Among the tribes 
having soldier societies we again find certain marked 
similarities in the current names for these organizations 
as shown in the following partial list, compiled by Dr. 
R. H. Lowie:— 



Ma ndan 



Ravens 
Half-Shorn 
Heads 



Uidatsa 
Kit -foxes 

Ravens 
Half-Shorn 
Heads 



Arikara 
Foxes 



Crows 



Blackfoot 
Kit-foxes 
Mosquitoes 
Ravens 



Foolish Dogs Crazy Dogs Mad Dogs Crazy Dogs 



Arapaho 
Kit-foxes 



Crazy 
Lodge 



Dogs (?) 
Old Dogs 

Soldiers 

Buffaloes 



Small Dogs 
Dogs 

Enemies 

BuUs 



1 oung Dogs — 
Big Young Dogs 

Dogs (?) 
Soldiers j Braves (?) 

( Soldiers (?) 
Mad Bulls Bulls 



Gros Ventre 
Kit-foxes 
Flies 



Crazy 
Lodge 



Dogs 



Dogs 




Fig. 35. A Dog Dancer. Hiclatsa. (After Maximilian.) 



96 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



It will be noted that a mad or foolish society is found 
in each of the six tribes as is also a dog society, while 
the kit-fox and the raven are common to a number. 
Investigations of these organizations have shown that 
though those bearing similar names are not exact dupli- 
cates, they nevertheless have many fundamental ele- 
ments in common. 

The most probable explanation of this correspon- 
dence in name and element is that each distinct society 
had a common origin, or that the bulls, for example, 
were created by one tribe and then passed on to others. 
This is an important point because among anthropolo- 
gists there are two extreme theories to account for 
similarities m culture, one that all like cultural traits, 
wherever found, had a common origin, the other that 
all were invented or derived independently by the 
tribes practising them. The former is often spoken 
of as the diffusion of cultural traits, the latter as inde- 
pendent development. It is generally agreed, how- 
ever, that most cultures contain traits acquired by 
diffusion or borrowing ) as well as some entirely original 
to themselves, the whole forming a complex very 
difficult to analyze. Returning to these Plains Indian 
societies we find among several tribes Blackfoot. 
Gros Ventre. Arapaho. Mandan. and Hidatsa) an 
additional feature in that the societies enumerated in 
our table are arranged in series so that ordinarily a man 
passes from one to the other in order, like school children 
m their grades, thus automatically grouping the mem- 
bers according to age. For this variety, the term age- 



98 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



society has been used by Dr. Kroeber. Thus, it appears 
that while in certain general features, the soldier 
band system of police is found among all tribes in 
the area, there are many other interesting differences 
distributed to varying extents. For example, the age 
grouping is common to but five tribes, while among the 
Arapaho it takes a special form, the age grouping being 




Fig - 37 ' Headdress of Buffalo Skin. Arapaho Women's Society. 

combined with appropriate ceremonial, or dancing 
functions, including practically all the adult males in 
the tribes. An unusually complete set of the regalia 
of the Arapaho series is exhibited in the Museum and 
from the Gros Ventre, a related tribe, is shown the 
only known specimen of the peculiar shirt worn by a 
highest degree dog society member. Other regalia are 
exhibited for the Blackfoot, Crow, and Hidatsa. 



SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 



99 



Among the Blackfoot, Arapaho, Hidatsa, Mandan. 
and Gros Ventre, we find one or more women's societies 
not in any way performing police functions, but still 
regarded as somehow correlated with the series for 
men. .Among the Blackfoot and Arapaho, the one 
women's society is based upon mythical conceptions 
of the buffalo as is illustrated by their regalia Fig. 37). 
Among the Mandan, where there were several women's 
societies, we may note a buffalo organization whose 
ceremonies were believed to charm the buffalo near 
when game was scarce and the tribe threatened with 
starvation. Some of their regalia will be found in the 
Museum. 

These societies for both men and women in their 
fundamental and widely distributed features, must be 
set down with the camp circle as one of the most 
characteristic social traits of the Plains. 

A careful study of the age-societies and a comparison 
of their essential features with the societies of other 
Plains tribes, indicates that they originated in the Plains 
and were probably the original invention of the Mandan 
and Hidatsa. At least, we can be sure that these Village 
tribes were the center of distribution for Plains societies 
as a whole. 

Social Distinction. There being no such thing as 
individual ownership of land, property consisted of 
horses, food, utensils, etc. These were possessed in vary- 
ing degrees by the individual members of a tribe, but in 
no case was the amount of such property given much 
weight in the determination of social position. Anyone 




^ iri 4^1 



Fig. 38. A Blackfoot War Record. Beginning at the toj 
Bear-chief a] on foot surprised by Assmiboin Indians but h( 
[b) Double-runner cut loose four horses: c Double-runnei 
a 9 ro . S - Yentre bo ^ : d Double-runner and a companion 



and kill two Gro-V 

a bor Double-runn 
Gros Ventre which h 
two adventures with 
leader, met five Fla 
shelter in some chen 

i, not completely si 
running or! Piegan he 
took a bow from a G] 
took a shield and a 1 
hotly pursued: (m) 

fn he captured a Gros Ventre woman and 
mules. 



1 have 
aped; 
)tures 
'tinter 



entre. he taking a lance irom one; (e) even while 
?r picked up a war-bonnet dropped by a fleeing 
L tne ^3 .Mem counts as a deed; (f) a>s a man he has 
Crow Indians, taking a gun from one; (g he. a? 
head in a pit and killed them; hj a Cree took 
y brush in a hole, but Big-nose went in for Mm: 
.own. but representing a Cree Indian killed while 
rses^ j Double-runner, earning a medicine-pipe, 
os Ventre and then killed him : k Double-runner 
lorse from a Crow tipi. a dog barked and he was 
he killed two Gros Ventre and took two strns: 

oy: (o) he took four 



SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 



101 



in need of food, horses, or anything whatsoever, was 
certain to receive some material assistance from those 
who had an abundance. Among most tribes, the lavish 
giving away of property was a sure road to social distinc- 
tion. Yet. the real aristocrats seem to have been those 
with great and good deeds to their credit. The Dakota, 
Blackfoot. Cheyenne, and no doubt others, had a more 
or less definite system for the grading of war deeds, 
among the highest being the "coup," or the touching 
of an enemy. Curiously enough, this touching as well 
as capturing a gun was regarded by the Blackfoot, 
at least, as deserving of greater rank than the mere 
taking of an enemy's life. The Teton-Dakota, on the 
other hand, while recognizing the high value of the 
coup, also put great stress on the taking of a scalp. 
Running off. or stealing the horses of another tribe, 
was also a worthy feat among all these Indians. Among 
most tribes, it was customary at feasts and other 
gatherings for men to come forward and formally 
"count 73 or announce their deeds and often the quali- 
fications for various posts of honor and service were 
the possession of at least four coups. 

The social importance of such deeds naturally de- 
veloped a kind of heraldry of which the picture writing 
of the Plains tribes is an example. It was usual to 
record one's deeds on his buffalo robe, or on the sides 
of a tipi Fig. 38). The Dakota had special rules for 
wearing eagle feathers in the hair, by which one could 
tell at a glance what deeds the wearer had performed. 
The Mandan. Assiniboin, and perhaps others, had 



102 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



similar systems. The Dakota carried the idea over 
into the decorations for horses and clothing. Even the 
designs upon then moccasins were sometimes made to 
emblazon the deeds of the wearer. 



Chapter III. 



RELIGION AND CEREMONIES. 
HE sacred beliefs of these Indians are largely 



formulated and expressed in sayings and narra- 



tives having some resemblance to the legends 
of European peoples. There are available large collec- 
tions of these tales and myths from the Blackfoot, Crow, 
Nez Perce, Assiniboin, Gros Ventre, Arapaho, Arikara, 
Pawnee, Omaha, Northern Shoshoni, and less complete 
series from the Dakota, Cheyenne, and Ute. In these 
will be found much curious and interesting information. 
Each tribe in this area has its own individual beliefs 
and sacred myths, yet many have much in common, 
the distribution of the various incidents therein forming 
one of the important problems in anthropology. 

Mythology. A deluge myth is almost universal 
in the Plains and very widely distributed in the wooded 
areas as well. Almost everywhere it takes the form of 
having the submerged earth restored by a more or less 
human being who sends down a diving bird or animal to 
obtain a little mud or sand. Of other tales found both 
within and without the Plains area we may mention, the 
" Twin-heroes the "Woman who married a star and 
bore a Hero/' and the "Woman who married a Dogv' 
Working out the distribution of such myths is one of 
the fascinating tasks of the folklorist and will some 
time give us a clearer insight into the prehistoric cul- 




103 



104 



IXDlAXS OF THE PLAIXS 



tural contacts of the several tribes. A typical study 
of this kind by Dr. R. H. Lowie will be found in the 
Journal of American Folk-Lore. September, 1908 
where, for example, the star-born hero is traced Through 
the Crow. Pawnee. Dakota. Arapaho, Kiowa. Gro< 
Ventre, and Blackfoot. Indian mythologies often 
contain large groups of tales each reciting the adven- 
tures of a distinguished mythical hero. In the Plains, 
as elsewhere., we find among these a peculiar character 
with supernatural attributes, who transforms and in 
some instances creates the world, who rights great 
wrongs, and corrects great evils, yet who often stoops 
to trivial and vulgar pranks. Among the Blackfoot, 
for instance, he appears under the name of Napiw*\ 
white old man. or old man of the dawn. He is dis- 
tinctly human in form and name. The Gros Ventre. 
Cheyenne. Arapaho. Hidatsa, and Mandan seem to 
have a similar character in their mythology. 

The uniqueness of the AVhite-old-man ' appears 
when we consider the mythologies of the adjoining cul- 
ture areas. Thus between the Plains and the Pacific 
Ocean similar tales appear, but are there attributed to 
an animal character with the name and attributes of a 
coyote. Under this name he appears among the Crow, 
Xez Perce, and Shoshoni. on the western fringe of the 
Plains, but rarely among the Pawnee. Ankara, and 
Dakota and practically never among the tribes desig- 
nating him as human. Again among the Assiniboui. 
Dakota, and Omaha, this hero is given a spider-like 
character (Inktomi). It is thus clear that while the 



RELIGION AXD CEREMONIES 



105 



border tribes of the Plains, in common with many other 
parts of the continent, have an analogous series of tales 
attributed to animal characters, the tendency at the 
center is to refer the same tales to a human character. 
Curiously enough, the names for this character all have 
in common the ideas of white and east and were auto- 
matically applied to Europeans when first encountered. 
For these reasons, if no other, the occurrence of a human 
trickster hero appears as one of the most distinctive 
characteristics of Plains culture. 

Irrespective of the preceding hero cycle, many 
animal tales are to be found in the Plains. Among these, 
as in most every part of the world, we find curious ways 
of explaining the structural peculiarities of animals as 
due to some accident : for example, the Blackfoot 
trickster in a rage tried to pull the lynx asunder whence 
that animal now has a long body and awkward legs. 
Such explanations abound in all classes of myths and are 
considered primary and secondary according to whether 
they directly explain the present phenomena as in the 
case of the lynx, or simply narrate an anecdote in which 
the transformation is a mere incident. Occasionally, 
one meets with a tale at whose ending the listener is 
abruptly told that thenceforth things were ordered so 
and so, the logical connection not being apparent. 
Probably what happens here is that the native author 
knowing it to be customary to explain similar pheno- 
mena by mythical occurrences, rather crudely adds the 
explanation to a current tale. However, not all the 
animal tales of the Plains function as explanations of 



106 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



origin and transformation, for there are tales in which 
supernatural beings appear in the form of well-known 
animals and assist or grant favors to human beings. 
The buffalo is a favorite character and is seldom en- 
countered in the mythology from other areas. The bear, 
beaver, elk, eagle, owl, and snake are frequently re- 
ferred to but also occur in the myths of Woodland and 
other tribes. Of imaginary creatures the most conspicu- 
ous are the water monster and the thunderbird. The 
former is usually an immense horned serpent who keeps 
under water and who fears the thunder. The thunder- 
bird is an eagle-like being who causes thunder. 

Migration legends and those accounting for the 
origins and forms of tribal beliefs and institutions make 
up a large portion of the mythology for the respective 
tribes and must be carefully considered in formulating 
a concept of the religion and philosophy of each. 

Religious Concepts. To most of us the mention 
of religion brings to mind notions of God. a supreme over- 
ruling and decidedly personal being. Nothing just like 
this is found among the Indians. Yet. they seem to 
have formulated rather complex and abstract notions 
of a controlling power or series of powers pervading the 
universe. Thus, the Dakota use a term wakan tanka 
which seems to mean, the greatest sacred ones. The 
term has often been rendered as the great mystery but 
that is not quite correct. It is true that anything 
strange and mysterious is pronounced wakan, or as 
having attributes analogous to wakan tanka: but this 
seems to mean supernatural. The fact is. as demon- 



RELIGION AND CEREMONIES 



107 



strated by Dr. J. R. Walker, that the .Dakota do recog- 
nize a kind of hierarchy in which the Sun stands first, or 
as one of the wakan tanka. Of almost equal rank is the 
Sky, the Earth, and the Rock. Next in order is another 
group of four, the Moon (female), Winged-one, Wind 
and the "Mediator" (female). Then come inferior 
beings, the buffalo, bear, the four winds and the whirl- 
wind; then come four classes or groups of beings and so 
on in almost bewildering complexity. So far as we 
know, no other Plains tribe has worked out quite so 
complex a conception. The Omaha wakonda is in a 
way like the Dakota wakan tanka. The Pawnee recog- 
nized a dominating power spoken of as tirawa, or, 
"father," under whom were the heavenly bodies, the 
winds, the thunder, lightning, and rain; but they also 
recognized a sacred quality, or presence, in the pheno- 
mena of the world, spoken of as kawaharu, a term whose 
neaning closely parallels the Dakota wakan. The 
Blackfoot resolved the phenomena of the universe into 
"powers," the greatest and most universal of which is 
natosiwa, or sun power. The sun was in a way a per- 
sonal god having the moon for his wife and the morning- 
star for his son. Unfortunately, we lack data for most 
tribes, this being a point peculiarly difficult to investi- 
gate. One thing, however, is suggested. There is 
tendency here to conceive of some all-pervading force or 
element in the universe that emanates from an indefinite 
source to which a special name is given, which in turn 
becomes an attribute applicable to each and every mani- 
festation of this conceivedly divine element. Probably 



108 



jl.-.:\-s 



nowhere, not even among the Dakota, is there a clear- 
cut formulation of a definite god-like being with definite 
powers and functions. 

A Supernatural Helper. It ismueh easier, how- 
ever, to gather reliable data on religious activities or the 
functioning of these beliefs in actual life. In the Plains, 
as well as in some other parts of the continent, the ideal 
is for all males to establish some kind of direct relation 
with this divine element or power. The idea is that if 
one follows the proper formula, the power will appear in 
some human or animal form and will form a compact 
with the applicant for his good fortune during life. The 
procedure is usually for a youth to put himself in the 
hands of a priest, or shaman, who instructs him and 
requires him to fast and pray alone in some secluded 
spot until the vision or dream is obtained. In the 
Plains such an experience results in the conferring of one 
or more songs, the laying on of certain curious formal 
taboos, and of the designation of some object, as a 
feather, skin, shell, etc.. to be carried and used as a 
charm or medicine bundle. This procedure has been 
definitely reported for the Sarsi. Plains-Cree. Blackfoot. 
Gros Ventre. Crow. Hidatsa. Mandan. Dakota. Assini- 
boin. Omaha. Arapaho, Cheyenne. Kiowa, and Pawnee. 
It is probably universal except perhaps among the Ute. 
Shoshoni. and Xez Perce. We know also that it is fre- 
quent among the Woodland Cree. Menomini and Ojib- 
way. Aside from hunger snd thirst, there was no self 
tenure except among the Dakota and possibly a few 
others of Siouan stock. With these it was the rule 



RELIGION AXD CEREMONIES 



109 



for all desiring to become shamans, or those in close 
rapport with the divine element, to thrust skewers 
through the skin and tie themselves up as in the sun 
dance, to be discussed later. 

Now, when a Blackfoot. a Dakota, or an Omaha 
went out to fast and pray for a revelation, he called 
upon all the recognized mythical creatures, the heavenly 
bodies, and all in the earth and in the waters, which is 
consistent with the conceptions of an illy localized power 
or element manifest everywhere. Xo doubt this applies 
equally to all the aforesaid tribes. If this divine 
element spoke through a hawk, for example, the 
applicant would then look upon that bird as the 
localization or medium for it; and for him, wakonda, 
or what not, was manifest or resided therein: but. of 
course, not exclusively. Quite likely, he would keep 
in a bundle the skin or feathers of a hawk that the 
divine presence might ever be at hand. This is why 
the warriors of the Plains carried such charms into battle 
and looked to them for aid. It is not far wrong to say 
that all religious ceremonies and practices ( all the 
so-called medicines of the Plains Indians) originate 
and receive their sanction in dreams or induced visions, 
all, in short, handed down directly by this wonderful 
vitalizing element. 

Med icine Bundles, In anthropological literature 
it is the custom to use the term medicine in a technical 
sense, meaning anything that manifests the divine 
element. Among the Blackfoot, Arapaho, Crow, Kiowa, 
Hidatsa. and Mandan especially and to varying extent 



110 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



among the other tribes of the Plains/the men made 
extraordinary use of these charms or amulets, which 
were, after all, little medicine bundles. A man rarely 
went to war or engaged in any serious undertaking with- 
out earning and appealing to one or more of these small 
bundles. They usually originated, as just stated, in the 
dreams or visions of so-called medicinemen who gave 
them out for fees. With them were often one or more 
songs and a formula of some kind. Examples of these 
may be seen in the Museum's Pawnee and Blackfoot 
collections, where they seem most highly developed. 

In addition to these many small individual and 
more or less personal medicines, many tribes have more 
pretentious bundles of sacred objects which are seldom 
opened and never used except in connection with 
certain solemn ceremonies. We refer to such as the 
tribal bundles of the Pawnee, the medicine arrows of 
the Cheyenne, the sacred pipe and the wheel of the 
Arapaho, the u taimay" image of the Kiowa, the Okipa 
drums of the Mandan, and the buffalo calf pipe of 
the Dakota. In addition to these very famous ones, 
there are numerous similar bundles owned by individu- 
als, especially among the Blackfoot. Sarsi, Gros 
Ventre, Omaha, Hidatsa, and Pawnee. The best 
known type of bundle is the medicine-pipe which is 
highly developed among the Blackfoot and their 
immediate neighbors. In the early literature of the 
area frequent reference is made to the calumet, or in 
this case, a pair of pipestems waved in the demonstra- 
tion of a ritual binding the participants in a firm 




Fig. 39. Medicine-pipe and Bundle. Blackfoot. 
ill 



RELIGION AND CEREMONIES 



113 



brotherhood. This ceremony is reported among the 
Pawnee. Omaha. Ponea. Mandan. and Dakota, and 
according to tradition, originated with the Pawnee. The 
use of either type of pipe bundle seems not to have 
reached the western tribes. One singular thing is that 
in all these medicine-pipes, it is the stem that is sacred, 
often it is not even perforated, is frequently without a 
bowl, and in any event rarely actually smoked. It is 
thus clear that the whole is highly symbolic. 

The war bundles of the Osage have not been in- 
vestigated but seem to belong to a type widely distrib- 
uted among the Pawnee, Sauk and Fox. Menomini, and 
Winnebago of the Woodland area. Among the Black- 
foot, there is a special development of the bundle 
scheme in that they recognize the transferring of bundles 
and amulets to other persons together with the compact 
between the original owner and the divine element. 
The one receiving the bundle pays a handsome sum to 
the former owner. This buying and selling of medi- 
cines is so frequent that many men have at one time 
and another owned all the types of bundles in the tribe. 

The greatest bundle development, however, seems 
to rest with the Pawnee, one of the less typical Plains 
tribes, whose whole tribal organization is expressed in 
bundle rituals and their relations to each other. For 
example, the Skidi Pawnee, the tribal division best 
known, base their religious and governmental authority 
upon a series of bundles at the head of which is the 
Eveningstar bundle. The ritual of this bundle recites 
the order and purpose of the Creation and is called 



in 



IXDIAXS OF THE PLAIXS 



upon to initiate and authorize every important under- 
taking. The most sacred object in this bundle is an ear 
of corn, spoken of as 'Mother/ and symbolizing the 
life of man. Similar ears are found in all the important 
bundles of the Pawnee and one such ear was carried by a 
war party for use in the observances of the warpath. 
From all this we see that the emphasis of Pawnee 
thought and religious feeling is placed upon cultivated 
plants in contrast to the more typical Plains tribes who 
make no attempts at agriculture, but who put the chief 
stress upon buffalo ceremonies. The tendency to sur- 
round the growing of maize with elaborate ceremonies is 
characteristic of the Pueblo Indians of the Southwest 
and also of such tribes east of the Mississippi as made a 
specialty of agriculture. 

In the Museum collections are a few important 
bundles, a medicine-pipe, and a sun dance bundle 
(natoas) from. the Blackfoot, the latter a very sacred 
thing: an Arapaho bundle: the sacred image used 
in the Crow sun dance : an Osage war bundle : a series of 
tribal bundles from the Pawnee, etc. To them the 
reader is referred for further details. 

Tribal Ceremonies. In addition to the above 
ceremonial practices, there are a number of procedures 
deserving special mention. Most tribes had a series of 
ceremonies for calling the buffalo and inducing them to 
enter the pound or to permit themselves to be easily 
taken by the hunters. These have not been satis- 
factorily investigated but seem to have varied a great 
deal probably because this function was usually dele- 



116 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



gated to a few tribal shamans each of whom exercised 
his own special formulae. The Crow, the Blackfoot, 
and perhaps a few other tribes had elaborate tobacco 
planting ceremonies. The Pawnee formerly sacrificed 
a captured maiden in a ceremony to the Morningstar, 
the procedure showing close parallels to Aztec practices^ 
and some of the maize-growing tribes in this area are 
credited with a "green corn" or harvest dance, a 
characteristic of the tribes east of the Mississippi. 
The Pawnee also maintained some curious ceremonies 
in which shamans performed remarkable tricks and 
demonstrated then magical powers. Turning from 
these rather exceptional practices, we find certain 
highly typical ceremonies. 

The Sun Dance. One of the most important tribal 
ceremonies is the so-called sun dance. The name as 
used in literature is probably derived from the Dakota 
who speak of one phase of the ceremony as sun-gaze- 
dancing: i. e.. the worshipper gazes steadily at the sun 
while dancing. To a less extent, this is one of the 
objective features of the ceremony wherever performed 
and is occasionally associated with a torture feature in 
which skewers are thrust through the skin of the breast 
and back and the devotee suspended or required to 
dance until the skin gives away, all the time supplicating 
the sun for divine guidance. 

Another feature is that in the center of the cere- 
monial place is set up a tree, or sun pole, which is scouted 
for, counted coup upon, and felled, as if it were an 
enemy. Upon this, offerings of cloth are made to the 




117 



RELIGION AXD CEREMONIES 



sun. In the fork at the top is usually a bunch of twigs, 
in some cases called the nest of the thunderbird. With- 
in the enclosure on the left side an altar is made. 

The time of the sun dance is in midsummer. It is 
usually initiated by the vow of a man or woman to make 
it as a sacrifice in return for some heeded prayer in 
time of great danger. The soldier societies, the 
women's society, and other organizations, generally 
take turns dancing at the sun pole after the above 
named rites have been concluded. As a rule all who 
perform important functions in the sun dance are 
required to spend several days in fasting and other 
purification ceremonies. 

Some form of sun dance has been reported for all the 
tribes of this area except the Comanche, Omaha, Iowa, 
Kansa. Missouri, Osage, Oto, Pawnee. Wichita. Ban- 
nock, and Xez Perce: that even some of these formerly 
practised it , is probable. The Mandan had an elaborate 
ceremony known as the Okipa, fully described by George 
Catlin who visited that tribe in 1832. This is not a 
sun dance, but contains the self-torture practised by the 
Dakota. 

When we consider the total distribution of the sun 
dance it appears that its ceremonial complex, like that 
for soldier societies (p. 96), presents several features 
variously combined and distributed. These are the 
torture, the circular shelter of poles, the use of a sacred 
bundle, the altar, the erection of a sun pole, and the 
dancing ceremonies. The form of shelter shown in the 
Arapaho model has been observed among the Arapaho, 



1 2fl 

INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



Gros Ventre. Kiowa, Ute. Shoshoni. Plains-Ojibway 
Cheyenne.. Blackfoot. Sarsi. Plains-Cree, and Hidat.a.' 
\\ ith the possible exception of the Plains-Cree all used 
a sacred bundle of some form. Tor examples see the 
Blackfoot and Crow collections., The Crow used a 
bundle containing an image, but a different form of 

f!, Th<? P ° nCa and Dakota »sed no bundles 
but a shelter of another type from that shown in the 
model, but both had the torture, sun-gaze-dancmg. and 
tne sun pole. 

Ghost Dance Ceremonies. Even within historic 
ti mes. there have been several interesting religious devel- 
opments among the Plains Indians. The most noted of 
these was the ghost dance. This was a religious cere- 
mony founded upon the belief in the coming of a 
Messiah, which seems to have originated among the 
Fayiotso Indians in Nevada - Plateau area , about 1888 
and winch spread rapidly among the Indians of the 
Plains. The prophet of the religion was a young Paiute 
Indian -Plateau Area, who claimed to have had a 
revelation while in a delirious condition caused by an 
attack of fever. The Teton-Dakota seem to have first 
heard of the new religion in 1889 and in a council held 
by Red-cloud, appointed a committee to visit the 
prophet and investigate. On this committee were 
Short-bull and Kicking-bear. who returned very enthu- 
siastic converts and began preaching the new religion 
among the Dakota. The principal belief was that an 
Indian Messiah was about to appear to destroy the 
white race, and restore the buffalo with all former 



RELIGION AND CEREMONIES 



121 



customs. As in all Indian ceremonies, dancing played 
a large part, but in this case the dancers usually fell 
into a hypnotic trance and upon recovering recounted 
their visions and supernatural experiences. All partici- 
pants were provided with decorated cloth garments 
bearing symbolic designs which were believed to have 
such relation with the coming Messiah that all who 
wore them would be protected from all harm. Among 
white people these garments were generally known as 
"bullet proof shirts " (see Dakota collections). 




Fig. 44. Peyote Button. 



The enthusiasm over the new ghost dance religion 
spread over the several Dakota Indian reservations, 
resulting in the attempted arrest and killing of the 
famous Sitting-bull by the Indian police and hostile 
demonstrations on the Pine Ridge Reservation, under 
the leadership of Short-bull and Kicking-bear. In 
consequence, United States troops were concentrated 
on the Pine Ridge Reservation under the command of 
General Nelson A. Miles. The hostility of the Indians 
increased until December 29, 1890, when there was an 
engagement between Big-foot's band and the com- 



122 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



mand of Colonel Forsyth on Wounded Knee Creek, in 
which thirty-one soldiers and one hundred twenty-eight 
Indians were killed. In a short time after this decisive 
engagement, practically all the Indians laid down their 
arms and abandoned the ghost dance religion. It is 
probable, however, that some of the ceremonies con- 
nected with the ghost dance religion are performed even 
to this day, since several of the leaders are still living:. 

Practically all of the typical tribes (p. 19) took up 
the new beliefs about the same time but no where else 
did the excitement lead to violence. Among the 
Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Gros Ventre, the ceremonies 
still exist in a modified form, apparently combined with 
the Omaha or grass dance (p. 123). 

Peyote Worship. There are curious ceremonies 
connected with the eating or administering of the dried 
fruit of a small cactus (Anhalonium or Laphophora), 
native of the lower Rio Grande and Mexico. The name 
"mescal" is wrongly applied to this fruit by many 
white observers. Long ago, these ceremonies seem to 
have been known to the Kiowa and Comanche of the 
Plains and widely distributed in the Southwest and 
Mexico. The rites begin in the evening and continue 
until the following dawn, and are restricted to men. 
There is a definite ritual, a small drum and rattle of 
special form being essential. Within the last few vears, 
this worship has become general among the Arapaho, 
Cheyenne, Omaha. Dakota, and Kiowa, and threatens 
to supplant all other native ceremonies. It is even 
found among the Winnebago, Sauk and Fox, and 



RELIGIOX AXD CEREMONIES 



123 



Menomini of the Woodlands. This diffusion in historic 
times, makes it one of the most suggestive phenomena 
for students of Indian life, since it affords an indisput- 
able example of culture diffusion. 

Dancing Associations, There are a number of 
semi-religious festivals or ceremonies in which a large 
number of individuals participate and which seem to have 
been handed on from one tribe to another. The best 
known example of this is the Omaha or Grass dance 
which has been reported for the Arapaho, Pawnee, 
Omaha. Dakota. Crow, Gros Ventre. Assiniboin, and 
Blackfoot. The various tribes agree in then belief 
that this dance, and its regalia originated with the 
Pawnee. The Dakota claim to have obtained it 
directly from the Pawnee about 1870. The Arapaho 
and Gros Ventre claim to have learned it from the 
Dakota. The Gros Ventre taught it to the Blackfoot 
about 1883. Though these statements of the Indians 
are not to be taken as absolutely correct, they indicate 
that this dance is a modern innovation. Recently, 
the Blackfoot have carried the dance to the Flathead 
and Kootenai tribes to the west. 

The meetings are held at night in large circular 
wooden buildings erected for that purpose. Some of 
the dancers wear large feather bustles, called crow belts, 
and peculiar roached headdresses of hair. A feast 
of dog's flesh is served at which many members for- 
mally give away property to the poor. They even go so 
far now and then, as to formally put away a wife as 
the greatest act of self-denial. 



124 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



In the same class may be mentioned the kissing or 
hugging dance, sometimes called the Cree dance. This 
seems to have come from the north and resembles a 
form of dance once common among the half-breed 
Canadians. In the Plains, however, it has Indian 
songs and other undoubtedly native features. To 
this list may be added the tea dances., the horseback 
dances, etc. 

Among these Indians each distinct ceremony or 
dance has its own peculiar set of songs to which addi- 
tions are made from time to time. 

War and Scalp Dances. The scalp or some other 
part of the foe was often carried home and given to the 
women of the family who made a feast and danced in 
public with songs and cheers for the victors. A party 
about to go to war would gather in the evening, sing, 
dance, and observe certain religious rites to ensure 
success. In all of these there seems to have been little 
that was distinctive or peculiar to the Plains. 

Ceremonial Procedure. It is rather difficult to 
characterize satisfactorily the many detailed ceremonies 
of the Plains, but some points are clear. Inmost we find 
an inordinate amount of singing, often extending over 
an entire day and night, interspersed with prayers and 
the handling of sacred objects or bundles and occasional 
dancing. The sweathouse is used for preliminary puri- 
fication and incense is burned at intervals during the 
ceremony. The participants usually sit in a circle with 
a fire at the center. A man leads and has the entire 
direction of the ritual, other men and perhaps women 



RELIGION AND CEREMONIES 



125 



assisting him. A kind of altar or earth painting is com- 
mon. This is usually a small square of fresh earth 
between the leader and the fire upon which symbols are 
made by dropping dry paint, suggesting the sand paint- 
ing of the Navajo, but otherwise highly individual in 
character. In the manipulation of ceremonial objects 
we often observe four movements, or three feints before 
anything is done. Again, many objects are not put 
down directly but moved around in a sunwise direction. 
All such manipulations are likely to be common to all 
ceremonies and therefore not distinctive or significant. 

It is not far wrong to say that all these ceremonies 
are demonstrations of the ritual associated with some 
bundle or objects and represent the original visions or 
experiences in which the whole was handed down. The 
demonstration seems to be ordered on the theory, that, 
as in the original revelation, the divine element will be 
present in the objects and appurtenances thereto. 
The persons participating are rather passive. We have 
practically no attempts to impersonate and to act out 
in detail the parts played by supernatural beings. 
This is shown in the almost entire absence of masks 
and ceremonial costume. Thus, among the Indians 
of the North Pacific area, the Pueblos of the Southwest , 
and the Iroquois of the Woodlands, we find persons 
in ceremonies dressed and masked to represent the 
various gods or supernatural creatures and who act out 
parts of the ritual. Even among the Navajo and the 
Apache of the Southwest, these costumes play a con- 
spicuous part. All this is rare in the strictly religious 



126 



INDIANS OF THE PLAIXS 



ceremonies of the Plains and brings out by contrast 
what is perhaps one of their most characteristic 
features. 

Painting the face and body and the use of a pipe are 
also highly developed elements. In most cases, there 
is a distinct painting for each ceremony, again supposed 
to be according to the directions of the initial revelation. 
A lighted pipe is not only frequently passed during a 
ceremony but is also filled to the accompaniment of 
ceremonial movements and offered with prayers to 
many or all of the recognized sources of the higher 
powers. 

The only musical instruments used in these cere- 
monies are rattles, drums, and whistles. 



Chapter IV. 



DECORATIVE AND RELIGIOUS ART. 

THE Plains Indians have a well-developed decora- 
tive art in which simple geometric designs are the 
elements of composition. This art is primarily 
the work of women. Clothing and other useful articles, 
made of skins, were rendered attractive by designs in 




Fig. 45. Types of Designs on Moccasins. (Kroeber). 



beads and quills. Rawhide bags and parfleche (p. 65- 
7) were treated with a peculiar type of painting in 
many colors. Realistic art was practised chiefly by men 
in the recording of war deeds (p. 100) and reached a high 
degree of excellence among the Dakota and Mandan. 
The technical aspect of bead and quillwork of the 

127 



128 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



Plains is quite peculiar. Formerly, there was little or 
none of the woven work so common in the Eastern 
Woodlands and the forests of Canada, the method here 
being to lay the quills on the surface of skins in large 
geometric areas. The beads now in use were intro- 
duced by traders and have almost displaced the original 
art of porcupine quill embroidery. 



LjJ A 



O 













rf 




1 




+ 



I 



9 ,l i 



m 



m 



n 



i & 



Fig. 46. Design Elements. Bead and Quill Embroidery. Kroeber 



The most numerous decorated objects in collections 
are moccasins which therefore offer an extensive design 
series. Though often examples of each design may 
be found upon the moccasins in a single tribe, the 
tendencies are always toward a few tribal types. Thus, 
the Arapaho predominate in longitudinal stripes 
(Fig. 45, a-d). the Dakota in definite figures <f. g. m. 
n 3 o) 3 the Blackfoot in U-shaped figures (k). etc. 
Additional designs will be found upon leggings, bags, 
and pouches. All these designs may be resolved into 
simple geometrical elements or patterns (Fig. 46). 



DECORATIVE ART 



129 



Here also, tribal preferences are to be found. The 
rawhide paintings are also geometric and though the 
designs first appear quite complex, they can readily 
be resolved into triangles and rectangles. Another 
point of special interest is that some tribes give these 
conventionalized designs a symbolic value. This is 
particularly true of the Arapaho. 

Thus Fig. 47 shows a moccasin which is beaded 
around the edges, but has its front surface traversed 
by a number of quilled lines. The white beadwork 
represents the ground. Green zigzag lines upon it are 




Fig. 47. Arapaho Moccasin with Symbolic Decoration. 



snakes. The quilled lines represent sweathouse poles. 
These lines are red, blue, and yellow, and the colors 
represent stones of different colors, used for producing 
steam in the sweathouse. At the heel of the moccasin, 
which is not shown in the figure, are two small green 
squares. These represent the blankets with which 
the sweathouse is covered. 

The design of a snake was embroidered on this 
moccasin in order that the child wearing it might not 
be bitten by snakes. The symbols referring to the 



130 INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



sweathouse were embroidered on the moccasin in 
order that the child might grow to the age at which the 
sweathouse is principally used : namely, old age. 

The Dakota also have interpretations for then- 
designs but seemingly to a less degree than the Arapaho 
-Among other tribes, occasional cases of symbolism 
have been reported. In the Museum collections is a 
pair of moccasins from the Plains-Ojibwav bearing 
Plains designs and accompanied by a definite symbolic 
interpretation. All this suggests that there must have 
one time been a marked undercurrent of svmbohsn 
in the art of the Plains. 

It was once assumed that when you found in the 
art of any people a geometric desigm said to stand for 
a definite plant or animal form, the realistic drawing 
was the original form from which it was derived by a 
process of conventionalization. When we attempt to 
apply this principle to the art of the Dakota and the 
Arapaho, for instance, we find in some cases the 
same geometrical figure used by both tribes but to 
symbolize entirely different objects. We are, therefore, 
forced to assume that there is no necessary connection 
between the life history of a decorative design and the 
object it symbolizes. Plains art clearlv shows that 
often along with a style of designs, goes also a stvle or 
mode of interpretation. Since this interpretation is 
a reading-in on the part of those having such a mode, 
any vague resemblance will suffice. 



DECORATIVE ART 



131 



This is nicely illustrated in the curious U-shaped 
figure upon the beaded yokes of many woman's dresses. 
Some Teton-Dakota women once said this had always 
been known to them as representing a turtle's head and 
legs as he emerged from the lake the beaded yoke). 




Fig. 48. Painted Designs on a Woman's Robe. Dakota. 



Yet. somewhat similar figures occur on the dresses of 
other tribes from whom no such symbolism has been 
reported. This might be explained as brought about 
by the other tribes borrowing the pattern from the 
Teton; but when many of these garments are examined, 



132 INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 

we observe that often the U-shaped turn is made to 
carry the beaded border around the hairy tail of the 
deer left, or sewed, upon the skin from which the gar- 
ment was made. The tail tuft naturally falls just 
below the yoke because the dresses are fashioned by 
joining the tail ends of two skins by a yoke, or neck 
piece. Hence, it seems more probable that the pattern 
was developed as a mere matter of technique and that 
later on the Teton read into it the symbolism of the 
turtle, because of some fancied resemblance to that 
animal and because of some special appropriateness. 

The preceding remarks apply exclusively to objects 
m which the motive was chiefly decorative. There 
was another kind of art in which the motive was mainly 
religious, as the paintings upon the Blackfoot tipi the 
figures upon the ghost dance shirts of the Dakota etc 
Such drawings, as with heraldry devices (p. 100) were 
almost exclusively the work of men. Another sugges- 
tive point is that this more serious art tends to be 
realistic m contrast to the highly geometric form of 
decorative art. 

In general, an objective study of this art suggests 
that the realistic, decorative, and other art seem to 
have been greatly developed on the northeastern border 
of the area, while the geometric was most accentuated 
on the southwestern. Thus on the northeast, beyond 
the limit of our area, the Ojib way especially possessed 
a highly developed pictographic type of art while the 
Ute (Shoshoni) of the extreme southwest of the area 
seem to have practised no such pictographic art but 



DECORATIVE ART 



133 



presented in contrast a highly developed geometric 
type both in embroidery and rawhide painting. Taking 
the Arapaho and Teton-Dakota as two intermediate 
groups, we find the former inclining to the geometric 
art of their Shoshonean neighbors, while the latter show 
almost equal proficiency in the two contrasting types. 
Thus, we seem to have two influences from opposite 
directions, reinforcing the common suggestion that 
the geometric art of this area was introduced from the 
southwestern part of the continent. 




Fig. 49. Blanket Band in Quills. Blackfoot. 



Chapter \ 



LANGUAGE. 

AS STATED at the outset, it is customary to 
classify peoples according to their languages. ' The 
main groups are what are called stock languages 
or families. Under such heads are placed all languages 
that seem to have had a common origin regardless of 
whether they are mutually intelligible or not. Thus 
English and German are distinct forms of speech, yet 
they are considered as belonging to the same stock." or 
family. In North America, there are more than fifty 
such families, of which seven have representatives in the 
Plains. Only one. however, the Kiowa, is entirely con- 
fined to the area, though the Siouan and Caddoan are 
chiefly found within its bounds. The others Algon- 
kian. Shoshonean. Athapascan, and Shahaptian) have 
much larger representation elsewhere, which naturally 
leads us to infer that they must have migrated into the 
Plains. Though this is quite probable, it cannot be 
proven from the data at hand, except possibly for the 
Algonkian-speaking Plains-Ojibway and Cheyenne, 
of whose recent movement out into the Plains, we have 
historic evidence. These tribes are of special interest 
to students, since in a comparatively short period of 
time,, they put away most of their native culture and 
took on that of their neighbors in the Plains. 



134 



LANGUAGE 



1 



Indians of the Plaixs. according to Language. 

Siouan Language 

A s sinib oin Man d a n 

Crow Missouri 

Dakota Omaha 

Hidatsa Osage 

Iowa Oto 

Kansa Ponca 

Algonkian Language 
Arapaho Gros Ventre 

Blackfoot Plains-Cree 
Cheyenne Plains-0 j ibway 

Caddoan Language 

Arikara Pawnee 
Wichita 

Kiowan Language 
Kiowa 

Shoshonean Language 
Bannock Northern Shoshoni 

Comanche Ute 

Wind Paver Shoshoni 

Athapascan Language 
Kiowa- Apache Sarsi 

Shahaptian Language 
Xez Perce 



136 INDIANS OF THE PLAIXS 

The Athapascan-speaking Kiowa-Apache and Sarsi 
are also worthy of notice because the family to which 
they belong has representatives in five of the eMit 
great culture areas into which North American cul- 
tures are localized, affording us the unique example 
of five distinct cultures with languages of the same 
ianiiiy. or stock. 

Returning to our classification of Plains tribes under 
linguistic families, it may be well to note that while 
it is absolutely true that these families have nothing 
m common, the differences between the various tribes 
under the same stock are by no means equal. Thus 
while a Dakota and an Assinibom can make them- 
selves partially understood. Dakota and Crow are so 
different that only philologists are able to discover them 
to be of the same family. Again, in the Algonkian group 
the Arapaho and Gros Ventre are conscious of having 
related languages, while the Blackfoot lived on neigh- 
borly terms with the latter for many years as did The 
Cheyenne with the Arapaho, not once, so far a* we 
know, discovering any definite relation between their 
languages. It is well to remember, therefore, that the 
term linguistic stock does not denote the language or 
speech oi a particular tribe, but is a designation of the 
philologists to define observed relationships in structure 
and form, and that the speech of these Indians differs 
m varying degree as one passes from one group to the 
other. Thus, the seven tribes of the Dakota form at 
least three dialectic groups: the Eastern tribes say 
Dakota and the Teton. Lakota. one always using d for 



LANGUAGE 



137 



the other's I; the Santee hda (go home), the Teton, gla 
and the Yankton kda. Even within the different 
communities of the Teton small differences are said to 
exist. Hence, the differences in speech are after all 
gradations of variable magnitude from the study of 
which philologists are able to discover relationship 
and descent, all believed to have originated from one 
now extinct mother tongue being classed under one 
family, or stock name. In short, there are no language 
characters peculiar to the Plains tribes, as is the case 
with other cultural characters. 

The foregoing remarks apply entirely to oral lan- 
guage. We must not overlook the extensive use of a 
sign language which seems to have served all the pur- 
poses of an international or intertribal language. The 
signs were made with the hands and fingers, but were 
not in any sense the spelling out of a spoken language. 
The language was based upon ideas alone. Had it 
been otherwise, it could not have been understood 
outside of the tribe. Though some traces of such a 
language have been met with outside of the Plains, it is 
only within the area that we find a system so well 
developed that intertribal visitors could be entertained 
with sign-talk on all subjects. The Crow, Kiowa, 
Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Blackfoot are generally re- 
garded as having been most proficient and the Omaha, 
Osage, Kansas and Ute, as least skilful in its use. It 
may not be amiss to add that in most tribes could be 
found individuals priding themselves in speaking one 
or more languages. In former times, many Xez Perce, 



138 



IXDIAXS OF THE PLAINS 



Blackfoot. Gros Ventre, Dakota, and Mandan are said 
to have known some of the Crow language which was in 
consequence often used by traders. This, if true, was 
no doubt due to the peculiar geographical position of 
the Crow. The sign language, however, could be 
used among all tribes familiar with it and must, there- 
fore, be considered one of the striking peculiar traits of 
the Plains and an important factor in the diffusion of 
culture. 



Chapter VI. 



PHYSICAL TYPE. 

SO FAR we have concerned ourselves with how the 
Plains Indians lived, or with their culture, but 
our subject would not be complete without a 
general idea of their anatomy and physical condition. 
According to the census of 1910 there resided within the 
United States 50,208 members of the tribes we have 
designated as Plains Indians. The number for each 
tribe, together with the extent of mixture, is shown in 
the table. Nearly all of the mixed-bloods are descend- 
ants of white men and Indian women. We have no 
exact data as to the number of these Indians in Canada, 
but consider it to be less than 12,000. Since 1880 there 
seems to have been little change in the density of this 
population, though some tribes are now increasing. As 
to how the number of 1910 compares with the popula- 
tion of a century or more ago we can but guess, but 
there is no reason to believe that it ever exceeded 
100,000. 

No careful study of the physical types for the Plains 
has been made. Our general impression of the tribal 
appearance is largely influenced by hair dress, costume, 
and posture, and it is difficult to dissociate these 
externals from somatic features. Yet, a brief scrutiny 
of casts of faces or photographs usually reveals tribal 
resemblances like those we see in families among our- 
selves. As the Indians of the Plains are but a sub- 

139 



H 
W 

o 



PHYSICAL TYPE 



143 



Population axd Mixture of Blood 



Total 

Tribe Population 

Teton Dakota 14284 

Shoshoni 3840 

Cheyenne 3055 

Sisseton Dakota 2514 

Piegan 2268 

Ute 2240 

Yankton Dakota 2088 

Crow 1799 

Eastern Dakota 1539 

Arapaho 1419 

Osage 1373 

Yanktonai Dakota 135 < 

Xez Perce 1259 

Assiniboin 1253 

Comanche 1171 
Kiowa 

Average percentage of lull- 
bloods 



Percentage 
Full-Bloods Tribe 

74 . 2 Omaha 



Total Percentage 
Population Full-Bloods 



86. / 
87.1 
64.9 
53 . 5 
94.1 
64.6 
69.0 
51.9 
92.4 
43.0 
84.3 
77 0 
63.3 
62.9 



bioux ' miscel- 
laneous) 
Ponca 
Pawnee 
Hidatsa 
Iowa 

Gros Ventre 
Caddo 
Ankara 
Bannock 
Oto 

Wichita 
Kansa 
Mandan 
1126 72.6 
Total population 



1105 

996 

875 
633 
547 
547 
510 
452 
444 
413 
332 
318 
238 
209 



80. 
49 



V> 7 



85 
76. 
24. 
76. 
74. 
83.8 
78.2 
63.6 
96.9 
29.8 
78.9 



50,208 



70 . 00 Total full-blood population 35,000 



division of the same race this is about the only difference 
that should be expected. The color tone of the skin 
a reddish chocolate ) seems about the same throughout 
the area, though perhaps lighter with occasional leanings 
toward the yellow among some Blackfoot of the north : 
yet to be exact, no color studies worthy of the name 
have been made. The hair is. like that of all Indians, 
uniformly black and straight. As to stature, they 
appear rather tall. The following average measure- 
ments have been reported. 





Millimeters. 


Inches. 


Cheyenne 


1745 


68.7 


Crow 


1732 


68.1 


Arapaho 


1728 


68.03 


Dakota 


1726 


67.09 


Plains-Ojibway 


1723 


67.8 


Blackfoot 


1715 


67.5 


Kiowa 


1709 


67.2 


Comanche 


1678 


66.06 



144 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



These are from the typical nomadic group of tribes 
as previously defined and with the exception of the 
Comanche are quite tall. As the figures above are 
averages, we must expect among the Cheyenne some 
very tall individuals. (Twenty percent of those 
measured, exceeded 1820 mm.). 

On the west, the statures are less: — 

Millimeters. Inches. 

Xez Perce 1697 66.8 

Ute 1661 65.4 

Among the village group we note: — 

Millimeters. Inches. 

Omaha 1732 68.1 

Pawnee 1713 67.4 

Arikara 1690 66.5 

again a tendency toward tall statures. 

So as compared, not only with other Indians, but 
with mankind as a whole, the Indians of the Plains are 
a tall people. 

Looking at the faces of the various tribes, some 
general differences appear. Those of the Blackfoot, 
Plains-Cree, and Assiniboin seem rather rounded and 
delicate while those of the Dakota are longer and clear 
cut with strong lines, an eagle nose , and more prominent 
cheek bones. The Pawnee again have large, heavy, or 
massive faces. On none of these points, however, have 
investigations been made and it is an open question 
whether anything would be accomplished thereby other 



PHYSICAL TYPE 



145 



than the definition of minute differences. In historical 
times, at least, there was a great deal of intermarriage 
and visiting between these tribes which must have 
tended to level down somatic differences and which 
makes the successful determination of genetic relation- 
ship quite improbable. As to head form, we find an 
index of about 80 for the Ute, Cree. Dakota, Blaekfoot, 
Cheyenne. Arapaho, Pawnee, and a considerably higher 
value for the Comanche, Osage, Omaha. Wichita, and 
Kiowa. 

Thus in general it appears that the Indians 
of the Plains are not anatomically distinct from 
those occupying some other parts of the continent. 
Yet. when closely considered they tend to form a 
group in distinction to the tribes of other areas. In the 
preceding chapters we observed that the tribes in the 
center of the Plains were more original in culture, where- 
as those on the borders had assimilated may foreign 
traits. So in much the same way we find that the 
central tribes tend to be tall, while the marginal ones 
are shorter, like those of the neighboring culture areas. 
The same kind of differences appear in other characters. 
It is thus plain that the Indians of the Plains are some- 
what distinct from other Indians, but these differences 
are small as compared with the differences between 
Indians and Europeans. 



Chapter VII. 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF PLAINS CULTURE. 



0 FAR we have sought to sketch the outline for 



mental picture of what Plains Indian life was like 



a half century ago. We have given no considera- 
tion to what it was before the discovery of the New 
World, how these people worked out then food prob- 
lems, whence they came, the ideas that led to their most 
characteristic inventions; in short, the course of their 
culture history. The data for a history of any culture 
come from three sources, direct observation of the liv- 
ing people, written records, and archaeological remains. 
So far we have depended almost entirely upon observa- 
tions made upon the living, that is, we have carefully 
sifted and compiled the facts reported by contemporary 
writers. Since the Plains Indians had no native system 
of writing there are no records of the past and so nothing 
is to be expected from that source. Thus the only addi- 
tional aid we may expect would come from archaeology, 
or the study of objects and traces of culture preserved in 
the ground. This limitation to the information avail- 
able for a history of Plains culture divides our subject 
into two periods : the historic period and the prehistoric. 
These terms are, however, not the best because the 
historic period for the Plains Indian opens about 1540, 
while we think of history as beginning a few thousand 
years before Christ. It is therefore less confusing to 
speak of the prehistoric period of the American Indians 
as pre-Columbian. So from the information at hand we 




146 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF PLAINS CULTURE 



147 



can make the accompanying outline of Plains history, 
or as we frequently say, the chronology of its culture. 
To make it easier to understand this chapter, we should 
fix in our minds the following characteristics of Plains 
culture : — 

They lived in the open grass land of the Great West. 

The buffalo is the keynote to their culture. 

About 1540 they became horse Indians, but before 
that date used the dog for a beast of burden. 

The most typical tribes made no pottery, nor 
attempted agriculture, but lived in tipis and roamed the 
open plains. 

Chronology of Plains Culture. 

1880 Reservation Period. 

Gradual Americanization and disappear- 
ance of native culture traits. 
Extinction of the buffalo. 
Many objects illustrated in this book and 
exhibited in the Museum were made in 
the early part of this period, but are 
typical of the preceding. 

1540-1880 Horse Culture Period. 

The culture described in this book be- 
longs here, but many customs, objects, 
and decorative designs observed in 
this period seem to have originated in 
the pre-Columbian. 

Probable intensification of roving habits, 
buffalo hunting, and the use of skins. 



14S 



INDIANS OF THE PLAIXS 



Firearms and other trade objects in- 
troduced. 

Trade beads substituted for quills. 

Horses, saddles, and the art of riding 
introduced. 

1540 Pre-Columbian Period. 

Quillwork introduced. 
Agriculture, pottery, and simple weav- 
ing appear among the border tribes, 
but buffalo hunting the chief occupa- 
tion. 

Dog traction developed. 

Beginning of buffalo culture, probably 

very ancient. 
The first immigrants brought the use of 

stone and bone tools. 

ThePre=Columbian Period. Though the lands 
of the New World were first sighted in 1492 it is not 
until 1540 that we hear of the Plains Indians. At about 
this time two famous Spanish expeditions reached the 
southern corners of the area. De Soto came to the 
Mississippi in 1541 and made some excursions into the 
prairies to the west. A year earlier Coronado set 
out from a camp near what is now Xew Mexico, and 
traversed the plains northeastward, apparently to the 
country of the Pawnee. It is from the reports of these 
two romantic journeys that we get our first glimpse of 
Plains culture. Coronado, at least, saw typical roving 
Plains Indians, for Ave read: — 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF PLAINS CULTURE 



149 



They have better figures, are better warriors, and are more feared. 
They travel like the Arabs, with their tents and troops of dogs loaded 
with poles and having Moorish pack saddles with girths. When the 
load gets disarranged, the dogs howl, calling some one to fix them right. 
These people eat raw flesh and drink blood. They do not eat human 
flesh. They are a kind people and not cruel. They are faithful friends. 
They are able to make themselves very well understood by means of 
signs. They dry the flesh in the sun, cutting it thin like a leaf, and when 
dry they grind it like meal to keep it and make a sort of sea soup of it to 
eat. A handful thrown into a pot swells up so as to increase very much. 
They season it with fat, which they always try to secure when they kill a 
cow. They empty a large gut and fill it with blood, and carry this around 
the neck to drink when they are thirsty. When they open the belly of a 
cow, they squeeze out the chewed grass and drink the juice that re- 
mains behind, because they say that this contains the essence of the 
stomach. They cut the hide open at the back and pull it off at the 
joints, using a flint as large as a finger, tied in a little stick, with as much 
ease as if working with a good iron tool. They give it an edge with 
their own teeth. The quickness with which they do this is something 
worth seeing and noting. (Winship, Coronado, 111-112). 
. . . They do not live in houses, but have some sets of poles which 
they carry with them to make some huts at the places where they stop, 
which serve them for houses. They tie these poles together at the top 
and stick the bottoms into the ground, covering them with some cow- 
skins which they carry around, and which, as I have said, serve them 
for houses. From what was learned of these Indians, all their human 
needs are supplied by these cows, for they are fed and clothed and shod 
from these. They are a people who wander around here and there, 
wherever seems to them best. (Winship, Coronado, 230 >. 

It was more than a hundred years later that the 
French and English first came in contact with the 
northern part of the Plains area, and made similar 
observations which may be consulted in the books 
treating of Hennepin, Radisson, Perrot, and La Salle. 
From all these accounts we learn that Plains culture 
in 1600 was very much like what could have been 
observed in 1800, if we ignore horses, guns, and all 
other trade articles. Hence, we can safely say that the 



150 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



greater part of the culture traits described m the preced- 
ing pages originated in pre-Columbian times. Our next 
problem, then, is to determine which of these originated 
first. 

To assign relative ages to pre-Columbian advances 
in Plains culture we can proceed only by interpreting 
the facts at hand. A people living in tents and packing 
their belongings with a lew dogs could scarcely be ex- 
pected to leave behind them ruins or earthworks, but 
only traces of camp fires, heaps of bones, and here and 
there a stone tool. This is just what the archaeologists 
have been able to find in the area occupied by the typical 
tribes, named and located in our introductory chapter. 
Of stone objects, there are arrow-heads, lance heads, 
knives, scraper blades, grooved hammers, and club 
heads, grooved rubbing stones for smoothing arrow- 
shafts, pipes, etc, Bone objects are not so indestruct- 
ible as the preceding, but when surviving consist of 
skin-dressing tools, awls and other perforators, wedges, 
pattern markers on -kins, quill flatteners. knives, arrow 
points, whistles, beads, and ether ornaments. Pottery 
is absent. Thus even a general enumeration of the 
objects found in archaeological collections from the 
heart of the Plains, indicates that the tribes of the 
buffalo country never rose above the cultural level of 
nomadic hunters. 

Though it is true that no ruins or earthworks are to 
be found out in the Plains there are some evidences of 
habitation. Camping places are marked by circles of 
stones used to hold down the edges of tipis. the lines of 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF PLAINS CULTURE 



151 



old buffalo and antelope drives are marked by boulders, 
and occasionally there are heaps of stones. But of far 
greater impressiveness are the great diggings from 
which came the stone for knives and arrow-heads. The 
most extensive of these is known as the " Spanish 
Diggings" in Converse County, Wyoming, but many 
others of about equal magnitude are found in that part 
of the State. Each of these covers many acres, one pit 
after another from which were dug blocks of quartzite 
and jasper, and around them heaps of broken blocks, 
chips, and rejected forms. Tons and tons of this worked 
over material lie heaped about as evidence of the anti- 
quity and reality of pre-Columbian Plains culture. 
Hence in this earlier period as well as in later historic 
time, the Plains were occupied by stone age hunters. 

Unfortunately all of these interesting traces of the 
pre-Columbian Plains Indians have not been studied 
closely enough to tell us much about their age, but by 
comparing the facts of Plains culture with those of the 
surrounding parts of the continent and especially by 
studying the cultures of the border Plains tribes some 
conclusions as to the relative ages for a few culture 
traits have been formed. These are presented in the 
chronological table. 

The Horse Culture Period . The Indians of the 
Plains lived a free life until long after the Civil War. 
The European invasion of the New World brought him 
the horse, an animal far superior to his dog. Just when 
and how the horse came into his hands we do not know, 
but most of the typical tribes seem to have been 



152 



IXDIAXS OF THE PLAIXS 



mounted long before 1 700. Both De Soto and Coronado 
brought many horses into the Plains, some of which 
escaped, starting wild herds, and the Spanish settle- 
ments m New Mexico gave the Indian ample oppor- 
tunity to learn their use. Once the Indians of the 
extreme south came to use horses, their spread north- 
ward from tribe to tribe would not be long delayed. At 
least all the tribes west of the Missouri had horses when 
the French and English explorers first met them. 

It is worth noting that most of these tribes became 
horsemen before they saw Europeans, or were other- 
wise influenced by traders. Thus Plains horse culture 
though introduced by European,, was self supporting. 
The Indian made his own saddles, etc.. while his herds 
increased by natural laws. Had connection with the 
Old ^ orld been broken, it is safe to assume that horse 
culture would have flourished indefinitely. This is in 
contrast to the other European traits introduced to the 
Plains after 1700. The Indian never learned to make 
guns, powder, cloth, kettles, knives, etc.: hence, these 
never became a part of his culture in the same sense as 
the horse. E or this reason we characterize the historic 
period in the development of the Plains Indians as the 
period of horse culture. 

During the long interval from 1540 to 1850, or there- 
about, these horse-using Indians roamed the plains at 
will except as intertribal hostilities and occasional 
"-hue intrusion prevented, but from 1850 to 1880 
settlers began to crowd into the territory, occupy the 
and exterminate the buffalo. Then followed 



THE CHROXOLOGY OF PLAINS CULTURE 



153 



a period of Indian wars, the establishment of reserva- 
tions and the gradual subjection of all tribes to white 
control and close confinement to their reserved lands. 
By 1880 these methods had completely exterminated 
the buffalo and all but brought the typical culture of 
the Plains Indian to an end. Xow he sends his child- 
ren to school, supports churches, cultivates the land, 
and acquires citizenship. 

The establishment of reservations for the Plains 
Indians began about 1855, but it was not until 1880 or 
later that all were settled and confined to definite tracts. 
The first Europeans to visit America treated the 
Indians as independent nations and their chiefs as the 
equals of kings. The same attitude was taken by the 
United States under President Washington so that the 
chief of each little tribe was recognized as a ruler and 
treaties were made with him by all succeeding Presi- 
dents until the time of Grant, when in 1871, Congress 
declared all Indians subjects of the United States. 
This was the first important step to the assimilation of 
the Indian, a process which has now progressed so far 
that all Plains Indians will soon be citizens and their 
reservations disappear. This not far distant event will 
mark the close of the last period in the history of Plains 
culture. Yet the memory of this culture during the 
horse period, will long remain as a source of inspiration 
for art and literature. Xo other culture is so picturesque 
as this, and certainly none holds a higher place in mod- 
ern art . 



Chapter VIII. 
ORIGINS. 

THIS brief sketch of the anthropology of the 
Plains naturally raises a few quite fundamental 
questions : How did these tribes come to be here? 
How long have they been here 0 What was the origin of 
their cultures? While final answers cannot be given for 
these, some progress toward their solution has been 
made. Taking the cultural classification as our point 
of view, we see that Plains Indians are not peculiar in 
stature or head form, yet seem to fall into a group dis- 
tinct from other parts of the continent. These differ- 
ences are, however, slight and give us no insight into 
the origins of the tribal groups. For example, the 
shorter western tribes ranging from 165 to 170 cm. fall 
into a large group of low statures including most of the 
Californian, Plateau, North Pacific Coast, and South- 
eastern areas. The Comanche, who speak a language of 
Shoshonean stock widely distributed over the Plateau 
area, are also relatively short. The greater part of the 
typical and Village tribes, however, range from 170 to 
175 cm., including the Yuma, Mohave, and Pima of the 
Southwest, the Iroquois and most Algonkin of the 
Woodland area. As to head form, the moderately long 
head of the Plains does not hold for the Osage and 
Wichita of the south and the Xez Perce of the north- 
west, but extends over the Plateau area on the west and 
into the Woodland area of the east. Hence, in a general 
way, the tall, somewhat long-headed, typical tribes seem 

154 



ORIGINS 



155 



to have relatives to the east in the Woodlands through 
Indiana, Ohio, and New York. Possibly this represents 
the influence of some older parent group whose blood 
gradually worked its way across the continent through 
many languages and several varieties of culture. On the 
other hand, the shorter, less long-headed tribes were 
massed around the Plains in the Southwest, the Pla- 
teaus, and part of the Woodlands almost engulfing the 
taller group. Now, while it seems clear that migrations 
of blood are in evidence, there is, as yet, no satisfactory 
means of determining the point of origin and the 
direction of movement for these types. Turning from 
physical type to language, we have several large masses 
impinging upon the Plains and while it seems most 
likely that the parent speech for each stock arose 
somewhere outside the Plains, we are not yet clear as 
to the impossibility of their arising in the Plains and 
spreading to other cultures. It does not seem probable 
that all of them would arise within this small area, but, 
on the other hand, it is impossible to give satisfactory 
proof for any particular tribe. Thus, language gives 
us but a presumption in favor of migrations into the 
Plains of the Siouan, Caddoan, and Shoshonean speak- 
ing tribes. It is true that many tribes have migration 
legends some of which are consistent with a few details 
of culture; but as these nearly always take the forms 
of other myths, they cannot be given much historical 
weight. The plain fact is that the moment we get 
beyond the period of exploration in the Plains, historical 
data fail use. We know where the tribes were when 



156 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



discovered and most of their movements since that 
date, but beyond that we must proceed by inference 
and the interpretation of anthropological data. 

Xot being able to discover how the various tribes 
came to be in the Plains, we can scarcely expect to tell 
how long they have been there. The archaeological 
method may be brought into play here: but as yet we 
lack sufficient data. Mounds and earthworks have been 
discovered in the Dakotas and southward along the Mis- 
souri, apparently the fringe of the great mound area 
in the Woodlands to the east, but in the open plains, we 
have so far only evidence of states of culture similar to 
those we have just described, from which we infer that 
no other culture preceded this one. Yet for all we know, 
its origin may date back several thousand years. 
Certain it is that in 1540 all the typical Plains traits 
of culture were in function, and since the wheels of 
primitive progress move slowly we can safely assume 
a remote origin. 

Anyway when we consider the culture of the Plains 
since 1540. it appears that so many of the traits enu- 
merated in these pages are almost entirely peculiar to 
the area that we are constrained to conclude that they 
developed within it. This is strengthened by the 
peculiar adaptation of many of these traits to the 
geographical conditions, suggesting that they were in- 
vented or discovered by a Plains people. It seems, 
therefore., that while the origin of the blood and lan- 
guages of the Plains cannot be determined, its cultural 
problem is in a fair way to be solved. Among the most 



ORIGINS 



157 



distinctive traits are the sun dance, a camp circle band 
system, the soldier societies, highly developed ritualistic 
bundles, a peculiar geometric decorative art, the use of 
the horse and travois, the skin-covered tipi, the earth - 
lodge, and economic dependence upon the buffalo. 
Some of these are absolutely confined to the area and 
though others are found elsewhere they occur as second- 
ary rather than as primary traits, We may safely 
conclude, therefore, that the tribes of the Plains at 
least developed these traits to their present form, if 
they did not actually invent them. 

Perhaps the most interesting phase of Plains an- 
thropology is the general diffusion of traits among the 
many political and linguistic units found therein. 
Miss Semple favors the theory that a Plains region is 
the most favorable environment for the diffusion of 
cultural traits. Whatever may be the fate of this 
hypothesis, it is clear that among the Indians of the 
Plains there has been sufficient diffusion to carry many 
traits over the greater part of the area. That diffusion 
rather than independent development or convergent 
evolution is the most satisfactory explanation of this 
case, may be seen from noting that the various tribes 
were acquainted with many of their neighbors, that in 
the sign language they had a ready means of inter- 
communication, and that since their discovery the actual 
diffusion of several traits has been observed by anthro- 
pologists. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

The following is not offered as a complete bibliog- 
raphy of the subject but as a list of books likely to 
meet the needs of the general reader. For a mere view 
of Indian life on the Plains, the books of Catlin, Grin- 
nell, Maximilian, and McClintock are recommended. 

Annual Reports, Bureau of American Ethnology, 3rd, 11th, 13th, 14th, 
17th, 22nd, 27th. 

Anthropological Papers, American Museum of Natural History, Vols. 

1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 16, 17, 21, and 25. 
Anthropological Series, Field Museum of Natural History, Vols. 4 and 9. 
Bulletin, American Museum of Natural History, Vol. 18. 
Catlin, George. Illustrations of the Manners, Customs, and Conditions 

of the North American Indians. London, 1848. 
Clark, W. P. The Indian Sign Language. Philadelphia, 1885. 
Dodge, Richard I. Our Wild Indians. Hartford, 1882. 
Farrand, Livingston. Basis of American History, 1500-1900. The 

American Nation: a History, Vol. 2. New 

York, 1904. 

Grinnell, George Bird. Blackfoot Lodge Tales. New York, 1904. 

Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk-Tales, New 
York, 1893. 

The Story of the Indian. New York, 1904, 

The Fighting Cheyennes. New York, 1915, 
Handbook of American Indians. Washington, 1907, 1910. 
Henry and Thompson. New Light on the Early History of the Great 

Northwest, Edited by Elliott Coues. New 

York, 1897. 

Lewis and Clark. Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedi- 
tion. (Thwaites Edition). New York, 1904. 

Lewis and Clark. History of the Expedition under the command of 
Captains Lewis and Clark to the Sources of 
the Missouri, across the Rocky Mountains, 
down the Columbia River to the Pacific in 
1804-6. Three volumes. New York, 1902. 
159 



It30 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



Mason, Otis T. The Origins of Inventions : A Study of Industry among 
Primitive Peoples. London, 1895. 

Maximilian. Prince of Wied. Travels in the Interior of North America. 

Translated by H. Evans Lloyd. London, 
1843. 

McClintock, Walter. The Old North Trail. London, 1910. 

Mooney, James. The Cheyenne Indians. (Memoirs, American Anthro- 
pological Association, Vol. 1, Part 6, pp. 357- 
642. Lancaster, Pa.. 1907.) 

Papers of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University. Vol. 3, No. 4. 

Perrot, Nicolas. The Indian Tribes of the Upper Mississippi Valle}^ 
and Region of the Great Lakes. Translated, 
edited, annotated and with bibliography and 
index by Emma Helen Blair. Two volumes. 
Cleveland, 1911. 

Wissler, Clark. The American Indian. An Introduction to the Anthro- 
pology of the New World. New York, 1917. 

Winship, George Parker. Editor. The Journey of Coronado, 1540- 
1542, from the City of Mexico to the Grand 
Canon of the Colorado and the Buffalo Plains 
of Texas, Kansas, and Nebraska, as told by 
himself and his followers. Translated and edited, 
with an introduction by George Parker Winship. 
New York, 1904. 



INDEX 



Adolescence ceremonies, 92. 
Age-societies, 96, 98; origin, 99. 
Agriculture, implements used in, 

81; tribes practising, 14, 18, 29- 

31. 

Algonkian language, 134, 135, 136. 
Altars, 119, 125. 
Amulets, 110; navel, 92. 
Animal tales, 105-106. 
Archaeology, Plains, 150-151, 156. 
Armor, 82-83. 

Art, decorative and religious, 

127-133. 
Arrows, poisoned, 83. 
Athapascan language, 135, 136. 
Awls, 64. 
Axes, 80. 

Backrests, 56. 

Bags, rawhide, 65, 67; soft, 56, 
68-74. 

Bands, 88; in camp circle, 91. 

Bark houses, 40, 41. 

Basketry, 55, 56, 74. 

Beadwork, 128-129. 

Beaming tools, 63-64. 

Blankets, rabbitskin, 43, 55. 

Bodkins, 64, 65. 

Bowls, of wood, 77-78. 

Bows, types of, 25-27. 

Breechcloth, 42. 

Bridle, native type of, 35. 

Brush lodges, 40-41. 

Brushes, hair, 54. 

Buffalo, calf pipe, 110; ceremony 
for calling, 54, 114-115; distri- 
bution of, 13, 17; hunting, 22- 
25; importance in Plains cul- 
ture, 17, 31. 

Bull-boat, 31-32, 33. 

Burial, methods of, 92-93. 



Caddoan language, 135. 

"Calumet, 110. 

Camp circle, 90-91. 

Campsites, 150-151. 

Canoes, use of, 31, 32-33. 

Catlin, George, paintings of, 35. 

Ceremonial procedure, 124-126. 

Ceremonies, 103-126; ghost dance, 
120-122; religious, 109; sun 
dance, 116-120; tribal, 114-116. 

Charms, received in visions, 109. 

Children, care and rearing of, 92. 

Chronology, of Plains culture, 
146-153. 

Clans, 89. 

Clubs, stone-headed, 27. 
Combs, 54. 
Confederacies, 93. 
Cooking, methods of, 74-77. 
Copper, prehistoric use of, 81. 
Costumed figure, of a Dakota 

woman, 48. 
Council, tribal, 93. 
Coup, counting of, 101. 
Cradles, 92. 
Cree dance, 124. 
Cruppers, 36. 

Culture, areas, 11, 12, 17; centers, 
12; chronology of Plains, 146- 
153; diffusion of, 122-123, 157; 
heroes, mythical 103-105. 

Cultural characteristics, Plains, 
17-18, 85-86, 99, 157. 

Dances, Cree, 124; ghost, 120-122 ; 

grass, 122; green corn, 116; 

kissing, 124; Omaha, 123; scalp, 

124; sun, 116-120; war, 124. 
Dancing, associations, 123-124; 

at sun pole, 119. 
Death, 92-93. 



161 



162 



IXDIAXS OF THE PLAINS 



Decorations, on bags. 67. 68: on 

robes, 43. 
Deluge myth. 103. 
Designs, on moccasins. 101. 127. 

12$. 129: on woman's robe. 131. 
Digging stick. 80-81; in sun 

dance bundle. 117. 
Doctors, 92. 

Dog, as pack animal. IS. 33: so- 
ciety, 96. 

Dress, 42-5-1: women's, construc- 
tion and pattern, 49-52. 

Drilling, methods of. SO. 

Ear ornaments, 54. 

Earth-lodges, construction. 3S-40: 
distribution. 40. 

Earth-works. 150. 156. 

Environment, influence on cul- 
ture, 86. 

Exogamy, 89. 91. 

Facial characteristics. 144-145. 
Feathers, significance of. worn 

in hair. 53-54. 101. 
Fire-making, 55. 
Fleshing tools, 62. 63. 
Food. 21-22: cooking. 74-76. 
Forests, distribution of. 15. 
Four, ceremonial number. 125. 

Games, 84-86. 
Gentes, 89. 

Geometric art. 127-129. 133. 
Ghost dance S4: ceremonies. 120- 
122. 

Government. 93. 

Grass, dance, 122: lodge. 42. 

Green corn dance. 116. 

Hair, manner of dressing. 50. 53 
54. 



Hand game. So. 
Headdress. Sundance, 11$. 
Head form. Plains Indians. 145 

154. 
Headgear. 47. 
Head men. of a band. 93. 
Heraldry. 101. 

Hierarchy. Dakota. 106-107. 
History, outline of Plains Indian, 

147-14$. 
Hoes. SI. 

Horse, culture period. 147. 151- 
153: introduction of. 1$. 22. 31. 
151-152. 

Hunting, butfalo. IS. 22-25: cus- 
toms. 21. 22: implements used 
in. 25-27: individual. 24-25. 

Individual medicines. 10S-110. 
Industrial arts. 54-S6. 
Inheritance, membership in a 
band, 89. 

Knives. 7$. 79: bone. 79. $0. 
Kissing dance. 124. 
Iviowan language. 135. 

Labor, division of. 54. 
Lance. 27. 

Language. 134-1 3 S. 155. 
Leggings. 45. 

Linguistic stock, and culture type. 

slight correspondence between. 

12: defined. 136. 
Lodges, types of. 40-42. 

Mad or foolish society. 96, 

Maize, ceremones for growing of. 
114: cultivation of. 21. 29-30. 

Marriages. 91-93: exogarnic reg- 
ulation of. $9. 

Masks, ceremonial. 125. 



BG 10.5 



IXDEX 



163 



Material culture, 21-S6. 
Mauls, stone. 27. SO. 
Medicine bundles, 109-114; trans- 
fer of. 113. 
Medicine-pipe. 81, 110. Ill, 113. 
Medicines, individual. 108-110. 
Migration legends. 106. 155. 
Mittens. 47. 

Moccasins, designs on. 102, 127. 

128, 129: types of, 43-45. 
Morningstar, sacrifice to the, 116. 
Mortars, rawhide, 29. 
Mounds, 150. 

Musical instruments, in cere- 
monies, 126. 
Mythology. 103-106. 

Names, manner of giving, 92. 
Navel cord, preservation of, 92. 
Needles, 64. 

Omaha dance, 122, 123. 
Okipa, 119: drums. 110. 
Origins. 154-157. 

Paint bags, distribution, 71-73. 
Painting, of the body, 54; for 

ceremonies, 126. 
Parfieche, 65-67. 
Pemmican, 27-29. 
Personal adornment, 54. 
Peyote worship. 122-123. 
Physical type. 12. 139-145. 
Pietographic art. 132. 
Picture writing. 101. 
Pipe bags. 70. 

Pipe=, 81-82: use in ceremonies, 
126. 

Plains Indian Hall, plan of, 3. 
Plains tribes, political divisions 

ol, 87-89; range of. 13, 14, 15. 

20: typical 14, 19. 



Plateau tribes. 15. 19, 20. 
Police, camp, 94. 

Political divisions. Plains tribes, 

87-89 ; organization, 93. 
Polygamy. 91. 

Population. Plains Indian, 139, 143. 
Pottery. 74. 76. 77. 86, 150. 
Pounders, stone-headed, 29. 
Pre-Columbian period, of Plains 

culture. 148-151. 
Property, ownership of, 99-101. 

Quill embroidery, 127-128. 
Quirts, 36. 

Rack, for drying meat, 28. 

Rawhide, use of. 29. 36, 56. 64, 
65. 67. 

Realistic art, 130. 132. 

Regalia, grass dance, 123: used by 
societies, 98. 

Religion. 103-126. 

Religious concepts. 106-108. 

reservation period, of Plains cul- 
ture. 147, 153. 

Riding gear, 35-36. 

Rituals, demonstration of, 125: 
for medicine bundles, 113-114. 

Robes, of skins, 42-44. 

Saddle, bags, 73: blankets. 36. 
Saddles, types of, 35. 
Sand paintings, 125. 
Scalp, dance. 124: taking, 101. 
Scrapers, skin-dressing. 61-62. 
Sewing. 64-65. 
Shahaptian language, 135. 
Shamans, 108-109, 146. 
Shields, buffalo hide, 82-83. 
Shirts, distribution of use. 47: 

scalp. 46-47. 
Shoshonean language, 135. 



164 



INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 



Sign language, 137-138. 
Siouan language, 135. 
Skin, color, 143; dressing, 56-64. 
Sled, use of, 33. 

Social, distinction, 99-102; organi- 
zation, 87-102. 
Societies, 95-99; origins of, 96, 

98; women's, 99. 
Soldier bands, 95-99. 
Soldiers, or police, 18, 94. 
Soldier societies, 99. 
Songs, 108, 110, 124. 
Spoons, types of, 77. 
Stature, 143-144, 154-155. 
Stirrups, types of, 35. 
Strike-a-light pouch, 71, 72. 
Sun dance, 18, 115, 116-120; 

bundle, 117; pole, 116. 
Sunwise movements, 91. 
Supernatural helper, 108-109. 
Sweathouse, 124. 
Symbolism, in art, 129-132; in 

ghost dance regalia, 121; in 

medicine bundles, 113. 

Taboos, 108. 



Tailoring, 64-65. 
Taimay image, 110. 
Textiles, 55-56. 

Thunderbird, in mythology, 106. 
Tipi, construction of, 36-37; 

distribution of use, 37-38. 
Tobacco, ceremonies for planting, 

116; cultivation of, 30-31, 82. 
Tools, primitive, 78-80. 
Torture, in seeking a supernatural 

helper, 108-109; in sun dance, 

116, 119. 
Transportation, 18, 31-36. 
Travois, types of, 33, 34, 35. 

Vegetable foods, 21, 31. 
Village tribes, 19, 20, 36, 73. 
Visions, 109. 

War, bundles, 109, 113; dance, 

124; deeds, 99; record, 100. 
Weapons, 82-84. 
Weaving, 55-56. 
Women's clothing, 49-52. 
Women's societies, 99. 




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